Hi there,
I'm fairly new to macs, but I've been trying to do a lot of research online since I experienced problems. I bought a used dual usb ibook g3 600 Mhz. In three months, the harddrive died, displaying the death syptoms:
1) failure to boot, showing flashing questionmark
2) loud clicking noises
3) unreliable when I could get it to boot
4) eventually wouldn't even boot from OSX disk.
I replaced the harddrive following ifixit's guide, and the brand new harddrive failed in 2 weeks, this time very suddenly, and with different symptoms:
1) Only bootable from my OSX disk (does not display flashing "?" but just a whirly mouse.)
2) Disk Utility indicates a fatal error (that doesn't sound good)
3) OSX intall wizard doesn't recognize the HD is in existence, so I can't reinstall.
4) Can't access the disk from firewire using the T boot method - it doesn't mount to my other computer's desktop.
My question is thus:
I'm concerned because I did notice that the machine runs quite hot, and I'm afraid that if I put another new harddrive in, and that's the problem, I'll kill the new HD. Of course, I don't know if that's what happened to drive#2, or if I was sent a faulty drive to begin with (I will see if the seller will exchange for a new one). Help a poor college student out - Could it be the motherboard? Could it be the fan? Something else? How can I test for that kind of thing?
and throw that in. It was probably just a fluke. I have seen drives die within 1-3weeks of getting them (and supposedly they were new) So, RMA it, try it again, if it does it again, it's most likely the laptop. Not all new hard drives work out of the box.
OK, thanks - I just worry about my new baby!