Pismo with Input/Output error...

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specialman's picture
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Joined: Oct 15 2006 - 19:49
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Pismo with Input/Output error...

Hi all,

Got my best friend (my Pismo 500) a bigger hard drive the other day. It's a standard 2.5' 30GB laptop HD that I bought off ebay for the paltry sum of £15. Of course, it's used and I think it came from a PC laptop. However, after being told any 2.5" drive will do I fitted it tonight, booted up from the OSX Tiger DVD and went straight into disk utility. When I clicked to erase the drive (as I did with the original drive when I bought the PB off another bloke) it just came up with 'Input/Output error'.

I've also tried ctrl + C with an OS 9 copy of Norton Utilities (knowing that the computer won't know the differene between OS9 and OSX) but I don't even get an intro screen - it stays ominously blank. Restarting from the OSX DVD the computer comes back to lfe, minus the ability to erase the disk.

I've just Googled the web with this I/O Error thingy and a lot of people talk about FSCK (single user mode). However, is this for a drive that's already formated with OS X or is it embedded into the logic board? I tried crtl + S to start up in FSCK but it didn't do anything.

I'm not too fussed if the drive has to be filed under 'Bin' as it wasn't expensive but I'd like to at least be able to give it my all to turn it from the dark side of Windows over to the sunny, pleasant world of Tiger!!!

Any help will be gladly appreciated.....

Jon
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Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
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fsck is a FileSystem ChecK ut

fsck is a FileSystem ChecK utility in UNIX. Thus, it needs an install of UNIX (ie OS X) to be used. You boot in Single User Mode from an OS X install and run 'fsck' from the prompt. I'd recommend 'fsck -vy' for Verbose mode and Auto-Yes to prompts to fix things. If you REALLY want to wipe the drive you can put it in a machine running UNIX and run 'dd' on it to blank the drive. dd is VERY easy to use to *totally hose* a system, so use it with extreme caution. If dd can't write blank blocks to the drive, then it's got issues.

One thing to check is where the drive came from. if it came from a machine like a ThinkPad that registers the computer with the drive, it may be a doorstop.

specialman's picture
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Last seen: 17 years 8 months ago
Joined: Oct 15 2006 - 19:49
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Doorstop it is then...

I'll see if it'll work in mate's PC laptop, if not, at least I have an offensive weapon to keep the burglars at bay!!!

Cheers matey

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