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VerdeSpider · Feb 7, 2003, 10:28 PM

ok ... so maybe it was a bad idea to buy a cube, but i made my bed so ...

anyway - it was running fine except excessive loud harddrive when all of a sudden the screen dimmed and a message stating 'You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds...' in multiple languages. i have tried restarting it and get the same message at the grey screen. i also tried to reboot from the OSX CD and get the same message. i can however restart with an OS9 CD. i ran Disk First Aid on the OS9 CD and found an error: 'MountCheck found minor errors' - but running techtool found no errors. still doesn't make sense since i can't boot from an OSX CD as well. i zapped p-ram and other than that i am at a loss. will probably bring it to the genious bar tomorrow - but wanted to know if anyone had a suggestion or two...

Colonel Panic · Feb 7, 2003, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by VerdeSpider:
ok ... so maybe it was a bad idea to buy a cube, but i made my bed so ...

anyway - it was running fine except excessive loud harddrive when all of a sudden the screen dimmed and a message stating 'You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds...' in multiple languages. i have tried restarting it and get the same message at the grey screen. i also tried to reboot from the OSX CD and get the same message. i can however restart with an OS9 CD. i ran Disk First Aid on the OS9 CD and found an error: 'MountCheck found minor errors' - but running techtool found no errors. still doesn't make sense since i can't boot from an OSX CD as well. i zapped p-ram and other than that i am at a loss. will probably bring it to the genious bar tomorrow - but wanted to know if anyone had a suggestion or two...

boot into single user mode (os x as start disk, hold down apple-s at start-up) and run fsck -y a few times and then reboot....might help.

Mac Zealot · Feb 7, 2003, 10:56 PM

sounds like the hard drive went poo poo.

Sometimes something on the boot sector can die, meaning you have to find a way to format around it, but no dice.

VerdeSpider · Feb 7, 2003, 11:06 PM

i had also tried fsck -y in single user mode and it found no errors ... seems the only place i see an error is with OS9 FirstAid ... anyway i did a few fsck and it seemed to boot up w/ the CD and harddrive. i booted up w/ the OSX CD and ran disk utility - no errors found and now i am repairing permissions.

Thanks!

so i guess i should look into a new harddrive since this one is so stinkin noisy!

Colonel Panic · Feb 8, 2003, 12:13 AM

it may be fine. my cube hard drive can seem "loud", too, but i think it's largely a function of how close it is to me (compared to a tower on the floor, for example)...

VerdeSpider · Feb 8, 2003, 01:59 AM

no man - it's really loud, i can hear it whining in the next room. it's the original maxtor 20gig drive - you can hear the bearings scream when the drive spins down.

after reading the forums here i just ordered a seagate 60gig barracuda - i hope to have better luck with this one.

my TiPB is dead quiet with the IBM that apple just installed. this is my 3rd drive for the Ti ... don't have too much luck with my apple product.

as a matter of fact - the cube didn't work out of the box and apple made me send it in for repair. when i bought the Ti the DVD drive was bad and they wanted me to send it in too ... after a 4 hour argument w/ customer service - i finally made them take it back. i basically refused to keep buying 'factory serviced' products at full price' ... took them a bit to understand that one.

anything i should know about installing the new drive?? i am guessing it should be pretty simple.

-c

imacaholic · Feb 8, 2003, 02:10 AM

I've had two drives go bad. Both in portable models (iBook and Lombard). When they whine loud, a hard drive failure is only a R/W away. I would back up the old drive and replace it ASAP.

joe · Feb 8, 2003, 04:12 AM

Originally posted by VerdeSpider:
no man - it's really loud, i can hear it whining in the next room. it's the original maxtor 20gig drive - you can hear the bearings scream when the drive spins down.

I had the same problem with my iMacDV Maxtor. The drive made that whining sound since the day I bought it (new). Yet other iMacs had nice quiet Maxtor drives. ISTR a lot of complaints about this a few years back the 15-20gig size Maxtors that Apple was using. Aside from the noise, they work fine. But in a computer as quiet as an iMac or stock Cube, the noise can get annoying.

anything i should know about installing the new drive?? i am guessing it should be pretty simple.

You'll need a Torx - can't remember if it was #9 or #10. The hard drive is held in place with 3 torx screws in a heat sink on top, and a plastic rail on bottom. Be sure to transfer the plastic rail to the new drive. Be careful when tightening the heat sink torx screws to the new drive, they seem to be made of soft metal so don't over-tighten. Also, the Cube's touch power button can be very sensitive after doing an upgrade. If you start having problems with the Cube turning off or on by itself you might want to try the paper trick over the button gasket.

I installed a Western Digital 100gig drive with 8meg buffer in my Cube (7200rpm). But Western later released a larger 120gig which is ideal. You can't use anything larger than 120gigs due to limitations of the ATA/66 interface. My 100gig WD has been installed for over a year and works great. I've done quite a few upgrades since (GF3, 1Ghz, AirPort, etc). Good luck with your Cube upgrades....joe

kOnshii · Feb 8, 2003, 07:41 AM

MY cube died also, it over headed in SUMMER, it over 100D-F or over where i lived that's around 45D-C. I started to crash, then it just died.

STUPID non existant fan.

kOnshii · Feb 8, 2003, 07:43 AM

LETS FIX THINGS UP,

MY cube died also, it over heated in SUMMER, its over 100D-F or over where i lived that's around 45D-C. It started to crash, then it suddenly just died.

STUPID non existant fan.

Its dark, and i have a black keyboard.

awaspaas · Feb 8, 2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by joe:
You'll need a Torx - can't remember if it was #9 or #10.

Torx 10 works fine, and they're a lot easier to find than a Torx 9. Anyway, good luck - taking apart a Cube is a fun project!!

VerdeSpider · Feb 12, 2003, 02:04 AM

OK ... so it's actually Torx-8 to get the heatsink off and Torx-10 to get the lower bracket off (Apple forgets to mention this).

anyway - the drive is in .. the jumper is set to 'Master' and the Cube is back together.

I still can't get the OSX CD to boot up the machine. I put the OS9 CD in and initilized the Drive no problem. Then I put the OSX CD in and it craps out at the grey screen. It also got a panic when i tried singe user mode.

Any Ideas? I tried Zapping PRAM and also held down the reset buttons on the bottom ... no luck

I am open to any ideas other than throwing into the east river.

-Charles

VerdeSpider · Feb 12, 2003, 02:33 AM

can it be firmware? i am not sure what version i had running, but think it was up to date since i had OSX already running on it before the Maxtor bit the dust.

I am installing OS9 (yuk) now and see what firmware is installed on this thing

-c

VerdeSpider · Feb 12, 2003, 03:29 AM

I just installed firmware 4.1.9 and it had no effect.

I can't install OSX - can't boot from the OSX CD - can't do anything remotely related to OSX.

I zapped PRAM - anything else I should try before I bring it into the genius bar?

I don't want OS9 ..

chris v · Feb 12, 2003, 08:26 AM

How much ram does the machine have? You might start pulling ram chips one by one and see if that helps.

CV

VerdeSpider · Feb 12, 2003, 09:44 AM

This is why MacNN ROCKS!

It was one of the Memory chips giving me the problem. I had all three slots filled. One was original Apple. Another came from MacConnection as free additional RAM, and one came directly from Apple to make a very unhappy customer happier (they cheated me out of the rebate).

So now I just need to find out who gave me the bad RAM and get it replaced ... I know RAM is cheap now, but it's the principle!

Thanks for all your help ... OSX is installing now ... EXCELLENT!

-c

reader50 · Feb 12, 2003, 10:20 AM

Originally posted by VerdeSpider:
...
I ran Disk First Aid on the OS9 CD and found an error: 'MountCheck found minor errors' - but running techtool found no errors.
...

Was it an older OS 9 CD? As of 9.0.0, DFA would report long file names in X (longer than 31 characters) as "MountCheck found minor errors".

Fortunately, DFA did not modify the filenames if you told it to repair the drive, it would just say it had fixed everything. Then if you check again, you got the same error.

Apple fixed this with DFA in 9.0.4 or 9.1, so it quit reporting the fake error. If this is the DFA on an older CD, you can safely ignore this error.

chris v · Feb 12, 2003, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by VerdeSpider:
This is why MacNN ROCKS!

It was one of the Memory chips giving me the problem. I had all three slots filled. One was original Apple. Another came from MacConnection as free additional RAM, and one came directly from Apple to make a very unhappy customer happier (they cheated me out of the rebate).

So now I just need to find out who gave me the bad RAM and get it replaced ... I know RAM is cheap now, but it's the principle!

Thanks for all your help ... OSX is installing now ... EXCELLENT!

-c

OS X is known to be more finicky about RAM than OS 9, which was the original clue. That, and the kernel panic.

Cool that's all it was. I'd hate to see a Cube go down. It's a matter of pride for us Cube-owners.

CV