ibook problems

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Last seen: 18 years 9 months ago
Joined: Jun 9 2005 - 18:23
Posts: 3
ibook problems

For the past few weeks my hard drive has been making clicking noise after a undesignated amount of time of usage and then it freezes the system. Sometimes when I reboot it would load the operating system. Usually though it would take about 30 reboots to load the operating system. The other 29 times it would just load to a grey screen and do nothing.

This last time the hard drive did two load clicks and then it froze. I have tried to reboot it about 100 times and it just won't load the operating system. I get to the grey screen every time.

I'm pretty sure that the hard drive has just died. My model is known to have logic board problems but I know its not the logic board because I don't have any of the symptoms that apple lists on the site. The only close one is that it logic board problem ibooks boot to blank screen, but I confirmed with apple over the phone that "blank screen" is not the same as "grey screen" which I am getting.

So I'm pretty sure its the hard drive has died. However, for some reason I cannot boot to cd. I can get to openfirmware. I have tried booting with cntrl-apple-p-r and open firmware reset-nvram reset-all. Neither solved anything. BTW I can get into open firmware, obviously. I can also boot holding option, but the hourglass just keeps ticking and neither the hard drive or the cd is shown as available to boot.

To me it would appear hard drive has finally failed after a long period of semi-broken usage. However why can't I boot to cd? Is not being able to boot to cd with a broken harddrive on ibook a known problem? Do you guys think its the hard drive or is it something greater, like the ide controller? If I buy a hard drive to test (expensive the laptop ones are) then I won't be able to return it (opened) so I want to diagnose the problem correctly.

If this is offtopic I'm sorry I'm new to these forums. Also if anyone knows where else I should look or go for support please let me know, as I really have searched google on this subject.

Thanks all. I'll check back for responses tommorow as my only computer has died and I'm typing this from someone elses machine. (yes I know I really do need to order some old macs off ebay and install netbsd on them). Later.

coius's picture
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Last seen: 10 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: Aug 25 2004 - 13:56
Posts: 1975
been there...

had the same thing happen with the G3 Dually USB 900MHz. When the computer is looking at the Hard drive, it gets hung up wait for the HD to spin up the disks in it and respond. Since the drive is not sending the data the IDE bus is looking for, the ibook keeps on waiting. The only thing to get it to start is: A: get a new HD, or B: pull the current HD out and leave nothing in it's place.
B is not really a valid option, so go with A. You can pick up 20GB's of of ebay real cheap. Just throw one of those in there. I can send you a service manual if you need. email me at pledoux@gmail.com

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Last seen: 18 years 9 months ago
Joined: Jun 9 2005 - 18:23
Posts: 3
Thanks

Hey thanks coius for the timely and insightful reply.

Its very strange that you can't boot to cd if the hard disk doesn't spin. I was hoping I could at least use ubuntus livecd that I have until I get a new drive, but I guess not.

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