Pismo woes after firewire disk mode

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Pismo woes after firewire disk mode

I put my pismo into firewire disk mode last night to transfer some files to it from my other powerbook. Now a series of strange things is happening. First, it wouldn't boot at all, just spin the drive and sit there, no screen, no bong, just spinning. Then it booted to the login screen and froze. Then when I restarted again it did the no wierd no booting thing again. I let it sit overnight with the pram battery disconnected. At the moment that seems to have solved the power-on problem, but now it goes to the circle with a slash in it and doesn't load osx. Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? Suggestions on how to get it working?

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With the machine powered off

With the machine powered off and the main system battery removed, take your firewire cable (not connected to anything) and plug it into the jack 3 or 4 times, making sure it's snuggly seated everytime. There could be dust/dirt in there that's bridging a couple of contacts.

Cheers,

The Czar

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Let me clarify. The problem

Let me clarify. The problem has come after the target disk mode. Target disk mode itself still works fine, the computer shows up, special drive icon and all. What isn't working is the boot-up. It hangs during the BootX search, hence the circle-slash. I think I somehow corrupted the power manager, which caused the power-on problems, and the system folder, which is keeping it from booting - even into single-user mode.

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Your pmu may be dead. I had s

Your pmu may be dead. I had similar problems with a powerbook g4 titanium. i used target disk mode and then it wouldnt boot back up afterward.

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and what did you do to fix th

and what did you do to fix that problem? I assume you did (fix it that is).

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new pmu, no luck

I replaced the PMU and the same sympoms persist: the machine will boot for a while, then freeze totally. Then when I restart it nothing happens, the drive spins up but the screen stays blank and it just sits there. If I leave everything unplugged (including the pram batt) it'll work normally again until it freezes, then we start all over. this thing now has a new motherboard and a new PMU, any suggestions as to what could be my next course of action?

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Im willing to bet

Your Hd is going out. Let me clarify. My last iBook before apple replaced it, was having HD failure. Every now and then while operating the machine, my machine would freeze. Then it wouldn't boot. The culprit was that the HD would dropout and then back on while the machine was operating. If the MLB and PMU have been replaced. the only thing left really is the CPU IIRC (I had a Pismo) anyway, The HD, while it may be spinning, may have a controller board failure and drops out. That is why you get the crossed out symbol, it loads part of the code, then drops out leaving the system wondering what is going on. I am hoping that this solves the problem. A way to test this is to put the other PB in FWTDM and boot from that by holding the option key down at startup. The HD's will pop up in a purple window as buttons (like in OS 9). choose the other PB HD and boot from that. If it boots, it is the Pismo HD

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the only problem with that

the only problem with that is, the machine doesn't even get that far. The screen doesn't light up, it doesn't attempt to load anything. It won't let me reset pram, won't go into open firmware, nothing. it just sits there, black screen and spinning but inactive hard drive.

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well then

one more option is to see if your ram is dead

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you would think that, having

you would think that, having already discovered one bad ram card in this machine, this would have occured to me, but no. this seems to have solved the problem. If it pops up again, I'm sure I'll have more questions though. Thanks for the help.

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yeah

it seems that the obvious is always the last thing you try Blum 3 I don't think i ever have had dead ram (i might have in my SE/30, but was not able to determine if i did, as the tube cracked while opening it up (the case hit the gun and cracked the glass [oops!]) Ah well...
at least you found the problem Biggrin

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recurring

with the new ram stick the problem is more intermittent, but it still occurs. on further research I have read that it is possible for the L2 cache to go bad in these machines. Is it possible that is what's happening here? It seems plausible to me, but I want to hear what others say before i drop cash on a new cpu card.

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anyone?

simple question: has anyone else heard of the L2 cache giving up the ghost on Pismo laptops?

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re: anyone?

Lombards are notorious for L2 cache failure, but I've never heard of anyone having the same issue with a Pismo. Of course you could be the first . . .

dan k

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