A Cautionary Tale + Question about ibook hard drive

I made the switch to Mac almost two years ago; I love my ibook G4, but I wish I had purchased AppleCare. Now I've got an odd HD problem and I'm wondering if anyone else has had something similar happen.
Right now the HD is OK; obviously, I'm using it to post this message. But fairly often I will get the whirly, the computer will absolutely freeze (no F9, no option-command-escape, nothing). Guess what makes it better? Tilting the entire computer up at about a 30 degree angle! Everything goes back to normal--the HD kicks back into place, the whirly goes away, and my computer is fine--until I place the computer on a level surface again.
I have a theory as to why this is happening, and I'm wondering whether it's correct. Stupidly, I have in the past carried my ibook around while it's open. Recently I heard an odd groaning sound coming from the HD while doing so. I bet that I scratched the HD somehow or loosened it in some way that it only works when it's tilted in a certain direction. Do I need to replace the HD? I'm on level ground right now, and, knock on wood, everything's OK.
Any similar experiences out there, or responses to my theory? Thank you.
iBook G4 800 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Andrew, if you're booted from a Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther) install disk, you should be able to open the Disk Utility from the Installer menu without actually installing Mac OS X. What does the Disk Utility tell you about your iBook's hard drive? Is the S.M.A.R.T. status failing? Are you able to "repair disk" and/or "repair disk permissions" on the hard drive? Have you run the Apple Hardware Test CD? Although it does seem to sound like a hard drive hardware issue, before you go about replacing the hard drive, it might be a good idea to go through these troubleshooting steps to eliminate things like a bad logic board first. What if you go about the cost and time to replace the hard drive but it's actually the ATA controller on the logic board that's the problem?
-Doug

Similar Messages

Need help reinstalling Yosemite/Question about external hard drive

I have an early MacBook Pro and I have to reinstall Yosemite because I've been getting nothing but spinning beach balls, slow loading, lag in type showing up, and wi-fi issues. I took the laptop to the Genius Bar at the Apple store last week and they ran diagnostics on everything and all was perfectly OK. No hardware issues, no memory issue and he said my laptop was very clean. He saw the spinning beach ball many times while he was working on my laptop and suggested that I turn off File Vault as that could be causing the slowdown. He said if that didn't work (it didn't) to buy an external hard drive (which I received today) and to back up everything through Time Machine then reinstall Yosemite. I specifically bought an external HD that says "for Mac" and as soon as I connected it Time Machine opened and did the backup.
Now these are my questions. Are all my photos on iPhoto, and my Word for Mac documents backed up so that when I reinstall Yosemite, everything is going to be right where I left it? Will I lose Word for Mac and have to reinstall it? Isn't Word for Mac a one time use/install and will I have trouble and have to call Microsoft to input my authentication key in again and will they let me? I know silly questions but I'm really worried about losing stuff.
Also step-by-step detailed instruction on how to reinstall Yosemite would really be appreciated. Thank you!

YoJoLo wrote:
Are all my photos on iPhoto, and my Word for Mac documents backed up so that when I reinstall Yosemite, everything is going to be right where I left it?
If you have taken the backup using the Time machine then there is nothing to worry as all your photos from iPhotos and Word for mac documents are backup safely by your time machine.
Only keep one thing in mind that the external HDD which you use for the time machine backup should have the capacity size of about 3-4 times that of your backup data size. Or else, the time machine external drive will start deleting the files if the external drive is about to be full.
YoJoLo wrote:
Will I lose Word for Mac and have to reinstall it? Isn't Word for Mac a one time use/install and will I have trouble and have to call Microsoft to input my authentication key in again and will they let me?
You absolutely don’t have to reinstall the Word for mac if its install in the first place because Time machine will backup the system installed files of your MS Word which you had installed.
Word for mac is a one time install and you don’t have to call Microsoft for any authentication key after you have restored your Word backup files from the time machine drive. As I said before the time machine will backup your Word system installed files leaving you no chance to reinstall it again.
YoJoLo wrote:
Also step-by-step detailed instruction on how to reinstall Yosemite would really be appreciated. Thank you!
Here, Yosemite reinstall procedure......
Important: To reinstall OS X, you must be connected to the Internet. Make sure your power adapter is plugged in. Reinstall OS X using the built-in recovery disk.
In the menu bar, choose Apple menu > Restart. Once your Mac restarts (and the gray screen appears), hold down the Command and R keys.
Select Disk Utility, then click Continue.
Select your startup disk on the left, then click the Erase tab.
Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format menu, enter a name, then click Erase.
Important: Erasing the disk removes all the information from the disk. Be sure to back up the information you want to keep to an external device.
After the disk is erased, choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility.
Select Reinstall OS X, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.
Hope this helps.....

Question about swapping Hard-Drives/Creating Recovery Discs

I have a laptop, Toshiba Satellite C655-S5082, with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OEM Operating System already installed on it so it did NOT come with an Installation or Recovery disc.
My problem here is two-fold... First I would like to change the hardware on the PC by changing Hard-Drives from the one that came with the laptop to a large capacity one however since the laptop came with the Operating System already installed onto it I can not install it onto the new Hard-Drive (which for all further purposed we will call Hard-Drive B) now I thought that I could create the recovery discs using Toshiba's Recovery Media Center to create the 4 DVDs however I do not even know if this will help at all since Hard-Drive B does not have a recovery partition on it.
This however is where my second problem comes into play, when I try to create the recovery discs using the Recovery Media Center I insert the DVD and begin the burning process, however about 75% of the way through the first disc the program slows down and a window pops up asking me if I would like to open the disc with Windows Explorer as if it has just recognized the disc again, I exit out of this and it comes up a few minutes later with an error code of 020150-20-0000000 and a message stating it can not read a file located within the ZZImages directory and then crashes, freezes and I have to end the process via the Task Manager then eject the disc via Windows Explorer 'My Computer' link.
As you can see my problem is two fold so my questions to the Toshiba Support Team/Administration are...
1. If I insert the new HDD into the laptop and begin using the recovery discs created via the Recovery Media Center will it be able to install the OS to that HDD and allow the OEM Product Key to be used to verify the OS?
2. If I can do the above process how do I fix the Recovery Media Center application from crashing and effectively ruining my DVD's, so that I may create the proper recovery dics?
3. If I can't do the above process due to the Recovery Partitions not being located on that new Hard Drive is there a way to copy and or transfer that Recovery Partition to the new Hard Drive so that the recovery discs do work?
4. If neither of the above processes work will Toshiba be willing to send me a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OEM Installation disc via the mail or the .iso/.img file of the disc via e-mail so that I may burn them to a disc myself and install the OS onto the new Hard Drive?
I do have the appropriate Product ID/Product Key for the OEM OS as well as the Serial Number of the specific laptop itself. Please get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you!

Satellite C655-S5082
create the recovery discs ... comes up a few minutes later with an error code
This sometimes occurs because of the media. Try using a disc from a different source.
Follow the instructions in the section Creating recovery DVDs/media, which begins on p. 68 of the User's Guide.
Satellite C640/C650 Series User’s Guide
I do not even know if this will help at all since Hard-Drive B does not have a recovery partition on it
It doesn't make any difference what's on hard drive B. All of it will be replaced.
For this, see the section Restoring from recovery DVDs/media, which begins on p. 71 of the User's Guide. You want to recover to "out-of-box state."
After you have restored to the new hard disk, it will contain everything that the original had, including even all the recovery partitions. So you will even be able to burn recovery discs again from the new hard drive.
..the OEM Product Key
The version of Windows which is restored (not installed) to the new hard drive is pre-activated. You won't need to fool around with the product key.
..will Toshiba be willing to send me a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OEM Installation disc
If all else fails, you can always order recovery discs from Toshiba directly.
Order Toshiba Recovery Media
Your questions indicate that you do not understand the procedure above. If my explanation is insufficient, please feel free to ask for clarification.
questions to the Toshiba Support Team/Administration
One more thing. There are no Toshiba support folks here. We are all users just like you.
-Jerry

Question about replacing hard drive

Hey everyone. I had a question about replacing a hard drive for a 2012 midyear pro. I have replaced hard drives before on windows machines, but this is the first mac I have owned. It didn't come with a hard drive when I bought it, but I do have mavericks installed on a usb. As far as a new hard drive, will any 2.5 laptop hard drive work? I read it needs to be 9.5mm thick. Is that correct? As far as I am concerned, hardware is hardware and should be the same as replacing a hard drive on a dell laptop but wanted to see if apple has any weird restrictions.
Also, is there anything I need to consider or be aware of when putting in a new hard drive? Or can I just hook up the hard drive and plug in the USB and install the software onto the hard drive. Thanks
Excuse and ny ignorance as I am new to macs.

scottrf8 wrote:
As far as a new hard drive, will any 2.5 laptop hard drive work? I read it needs to be 9.5mm thick. Is that correct?
Yes. Any SATA drive will do with those specifications.
Also, is there anything I need to consider or be aware of when putting in a new hard drive? Or can I just hook up the hard drive and plug in the USB and install the software onto the hard drive.
Assuming that the installer is functioning correctly, install the HDD in the MBP and engage the installer. You should come across a 4 option menu. Select Disk Utility from it. Open Disk Utility>Erase and format the HDD to Mac OS Extended (Journlaled). One you finish that, you may install the OSX.
Ciao.

Question about swapping hard drives...

Hi there,
I recently swapped the harddrive out from my old macbook pro 17" (post 2009 model) into a brand new macbook pro 13". I wanted to see if the OS would still run, and it did. My question is, do I have to perform a re-install of the OS or can I just use as-is? And if I do, if I backup via time machine, does that create an exact version of the backed up user account?

As long as each hard drive involved in the swap has a version of OS X installed that is current for the hardware, then the swap should work OK. However, if the new machine requires a later version of OS X or a version with a different build, then the swap will not work properly for the newer machine using the older hard drive.
TM will backup any and all drives included. Everything is backed up except what you specifically add to the TM exclude list. TM DOES NOT create a bootable backup nor permanent storage - files deleted from the source will eventually be deleted from the TM backup drive.

A simple question about external hard drives.

hi. this may be a stupid question but i kinda need to know the answer.
can you use any external hard drive on a mac mini?
also does the mac mini come with a wireless card?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
can you use any external hard drive on a mac mini?
Nearly any, but not necessarily all. Some bus-powered hard drives will not function at all, or may function inconsistently, and not all external drives will satisfactorily daisy chain, but by and large any mains-powered USB or Firewire drive will work. If intended for use to boot an Intel-based Mac (or to be bootable for such a system in case of problems with the internal), it will need to be partitioned in the GUID scheme (achieved easily via Disk Utility).
Firewire is better than USB if you have the option, simply because FW is more consistent in data transfer performance. USB drives are typically cheaper if cost is a significant factor.
In some ways, choice of drive may be affected by intended use. For example, if you intend to boot the system with it, a fast (meaning 7200rpm) drive with Firewire interface would be a good choice, while if being used for storing an iTunes library, a slower 5400 rpm drive with USB2.0 interface would be perfectly adequate.
also does the mac mini come with a wireless card?
All current Mac minis come with 'Airport' wifi already installed, though the original entry-level mini did not have wifi as standard. If your mini is one of these earlier ones, wifi can be added in a number of ways. If it's a later model, an Airport icon is normally set to show on the menu bar. It looks like a fan and if switched off, the fan will be blank, in on but not connected to a network, it'll show 4 grey arcs, and if on and connected, the arcs will be black.

Question about replacement hard drives and clean win7 install fo x61

We are getting a X61-7674 from my wife's job- they are removing the original hard drive so I need to get a new one and do a fresh install of Windows 7.
Two questions- can I get any laptop hard drive or are there certain brands that won't work with the x61- I have looked at the prices on the Lenovo site vs. newegg so would like to be able to buy a generic 2.5 drive.
second question- in terms of doing a clean install of windows 7, what is the sequence for installing drivers- assume I load w7 first- what drivers will I need to load- do I have to put them on a thumb drive to load them? Basically wondering what will work once I have loaded W7 and what drivers i'll need to download.
Would appreciate any help on either question-
Thanks.

1) you can use any 2.5 inch sata hdd of 9.5 mm thickness.
2) Windows update should pick up most of the hardware and install the correct drivers for them. However, there are still some stuffs that you have to install yourself. Such as:
http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-7-Knowledge-Base/Will-the-ThinkPad-X301-run-Win7-x64/ta-p/325173
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft

Question about 2nd hard drive set up

i have 2 hard drives and i wanted to know, do i have to install mac osx on the second hd so i can save stuff on it. i tried resetting my scratch disks in fcp to the second hd and it says its "write-protected." i also tried moving folders to the second hd but it says it cant cause it cant be modified. would i be able to undo the reinstalltion and install again to correct it?
thx

FCP second or third drives only need to be Mac OS X Extended, not journaled, when no OS is installed. You absolutely do not need an OS installed to access other drives in your computer.
While 'ignore ownership' could work, it won't if the permissions are messed up and the drive is rated as Read Only. Use Get Info after selecting the drive, Cmd-I. Access info is listed first in the Ownership and Permissions section. There is a disclosure triangle to show more about the ownership and a lock to allow opening and changing the permissions.
Once you have set the ownership properly you can use the FCP scratch disk preferences to set the drive.
Rick

Question about Ext Hard Drive with Time Machine

Hello
Here is the case
I have a macbook upgraded to leopard
Since Tiger, i use and external hard drive (maxtor 320gb) to storage all my 80 gbs of music and photos.
Now i want to use this same external device with Time Machine. but without having to delet my music.
What should i do?
Partition it?
or just opening Time Machine preferences, and selecting it as my back up drive will do?

Hello ADAMB
When i open up TM preferences, it allows me to set it as my back up drive, but i havent let it do a back up yet for the same reason that i dont want to lose any data.
In the other hand, i opened disk utility and this is the info i got
Disk Description : Maxtor 3200 Media Total Capacity : 298,1 GB (320.072.933.376 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 2CAHD13Z *Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record*
I do have Intel macbook
Thanks for the help

Questions about external hard drive

I'm running out of space on my macbook and am going to get an external hard drive, at least 500Gb. I see all kinds of different prices here and at places like circuit city, best buy, etc. I was wondering if just any external drive that uses USB will be fine, in which case I'd look for the best deal. But I play a lot of video files on my macbook, which is what the new drive will mostly hold. Will accessing/playing video files on the external drive be slower than it is on the macbook itself?

Any external drive would likely be OK. Firewire would be faster than USB, so preferable. You can also make your own external drive.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire or USB drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

Satellite A30: Question about new Hard Drive

The hard drive on the above computer has failed. When formating the system hangs at 70%. When running a utility to recover the hard drive again it fails at 70%.
I am now looking at replacing the hard drive and would like to know can any 2.5" hard drive (speed/make/size) be used (non Sata).
I would have assumed it would not be a problem but there is no way of changing the settings in the Bios, does the Bios auto detect the drive when fitted?.
When fitting the hard drive can it be fitted through the access panel on the rear of the laptop or does the whole back need to be removed?
Thanks,
Keith.

Hi Keith,
The hard drive on the satellite A30 is located underneath the optical drive which must be removed from its slot first. To do this just undo one screw (F5 I think) underneath the notebook and the optical drive will then be free to slide forwards.
The hard drive will then be visible secured in place by four screws (2 on each side). Remove the screws and then pull the hard drive towards the front of the notebook to disconnect it from the connector.
You will need to transfer the mounting brackets to the new hard drive which is then inserted by reversing the above procedure.
The BIOS will automatically recognise the new drive.
If you choose a drive with a higher rotaional speed than the normal 4200RPM be careful of the extra heat that will be generated. I use a 5400RPM drive in my A30 and it does tend to warm up quite nicely when the drive is being used heavily.
regards,

Yet Another Question About External Hard Drives

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone could recommend any good external hard drives. I'm confused on what to get considering there never seems to ever be a good one from reviews I've read! Western Digital and Lacie being probably the main culprits.
I'm looking for at least a 500gb with a fire wire connection (as I'll probably do some editing with it too).
Cheers!

Let's demystify external hard drives. It consist of two parts- hard drive itself, which is called internal hard drive- either 2.5 (available for laptops as an internal ) or 3.5 inch. There some other for factor, but these 2 are most common. 2.5 inch (external hard drive) usually doesn't require power source (draws power from usb), so it is very good for using on the go. However they are available only till 320GB (there will be 500GB version soon on a market). 3.5 on the other hand are less portable, but available in bigger sizes- 1TB so far (correct me if I am wrong and there is bigger internal HD than 1TB). If you put in enclosure more than one internal hard drive, then you get more than 1TB. There are some enclosures with fan and without. Ones with fan inside tends to run more loud, because you hear not only spinning hard drive, but also fan. Advantage is that your fan is cooler and supposedly you get better performance. There are only one commonly used internal connection inside external hard drive- SATA( others are less common because they tend to cost more and hd cost more too). There are much more connections to a computer FROM a HD. Firewire 400/800, usb, e-sata. There are hd enclosures with one or two or even all connections on them. Most common is usb, but it is the slowest.
Things to consider are these- buy brand name enclosure or assemble one by yourself. Brand name external hard drives might be cheaper, but carry only 1-(2?) year warranty. Also you don't know WHAT brand hard drive is inside. Especially it is notable for no brand hard drives (seagate, western digital, maxtor probably would shoot themselves before they will put some other brand hard drive).
When you assemble enclosure yourself you know what you get- what components you used and what warranty you will get. There is bigger choice of external enclosures than external hard drives. I used brand name external hard drives and assembled myself and can say that there is no difference in performance- hard drives doesn't last because they are brand name or they don't fail if you assembled yourself (assuming that you used antistatic band and assembled correctly).

Question about viewing hard drives in windows

So I just Installed windows on my macpro, on a second internal hardrive. Now when I run in OSX I can view the harddrive that windows is installed on, but when Im in windows I can't get into the harddrive with OSX on it.
I've looked in device manager and windows is saying that there is reading the OSX drive, but basically says its blank and I can't use it.
I really want to be able to swap info between these hardrives. Any advice?

You need to install the Boot Camp drivers from a Mac OS X 10.6 DVD or third-party software such as MacDrive.
(55693)

I have replaced my ibook hard drive but when I start up I get a folder with a flashing question mark. I have tried installing the OSX disk using the "C" key but can't get any further than the flashing "?." What do I do? What is the problem?

I have replaced my ibook hard drive but when I start up I get a folder with a flashing question mark. I have tried installing the OSX disk using the "C" key but can't get any further than the flashing "?." What do I do? What is the problem?

Which iBook do you have?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1772?viewlocale=en_US
Which version of the OS is installed, and which version are you trying to install?
You could try starting up with Startup Manager and see if it will allow you to select the OS X install disc as the startup disk. If so, maybe you can proceed from there. I would recommend repairing the hard drive first since you are evidently having a bit of a problem with it.

Cloning iBook Hard Drive onto iMac - How?

Hello Again Mac Experts:
You guys have never failed me yet so here's another:
Situation: I want to upgrade my internal hard drive on my iBook and so want to clone the original Hard Drive, OS and files onto my iMac before doing so. I was told "Carbon Copy Cloner" was an easy, solid program to do this operation with and so I downloaded it onto my iMac.
Issue: I have my iBook connected to my iMac via Ethernet cable and can bring up it's hard drive easily via Shareware. No problem there. The problem occurs when I start the Carbon Copy Cloner software. It immediately pops up with a window that reads - "CCC cannot find any local disks located on your system besides the start up disk. Please mount another local disk and try running CCC again" - and I can get no further. I've tried fooling around with different "mounting," rebooting, and such but nothing changes.
Problem: What am I failing to understand or negotiate properly here? Do I need to do this operation via a Fire Wire cable? Am I not mounting something correctly? What gives?!
Lost at sea again. S.O.S. Thanks!
chaemo
P.S. Truthfully, I would prefer to install the OS for my iMac onto the iBook new hard drive (when I get it installed) and so did a pre-run trial but it said it couldn't install because of "bundling" incapatibility or something. Any thoughts on getting around that one!??
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9) iBook OS X 10.3.9

Shoot, on the previous, I forgot to click the "Yes, my questions has been answered" button.
Anyway, Dale thanks for your comments and suggestions on this matter for me. Your advice worked! FYI - here's what I previously posted:
chaemo
Great, I think I'm good now!
Thanks for your help with this, sorry it took so long to respond, I had to purchase a Fire Wire and try a few things before I could figure it out.
As you suspected, I did indeed need to get a Fire Wire to do the cloning (Ethernet is not the proper cable to do it with it turns out). So while I'm at my local Mac store I asked the tech guy about it and he told me the cloning was easy to do simply by using the Mac Disk Utility app and that I didn't need to bother with any outside software to do it. So I tried that but couldn't ever get it to work because it kept indicating that the disk was "too large," and again, I could get no further. So I went back to CCC, got further along this time, but again, ran into the size problem (I'm thinking here, that if my technical computing skills were a bit further refined, either one of these apps should probably work) . Finally, I tried the Superduper software, as you and Dale suggested, and that did the trick!
I now have a cloned copy of my iBook Hard Drive on my iMac. Next step is to get a new hard drive installed on my iBook and then put the clone back into it. Any suggestions on how that is accomplished? Is it just a matter of copying it onto the new hard drive or is there certian procedures with certian protocols involved?? Still riding the clueless train as you can tell!
Thanks again very much for your help with all this, once again you all come through for me! Sincerely,
chaemo

A Cautionary Tale + Question about ibook hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for