Multi drive problems

Question

My favourite iMac seems to have multiple drive problems. Any ideas anyone? Thanks.
Computer details: iMac 15-inch flat panel; 800MHz; Hard Drive Seagate 120GB; Memory 512 MB; (last two upgraded/installed by myself about 5 years ago). OS 10.3.9
Symptoms:
1) Completely froze, only option was to hold down power button.
2) Trying to start up again gave regular clunking sound & icon with blinking question mark in folder.
3) Disk tray will not open
4) So, started up from an external firewire HD with system
5) Works OK, but Disk tray still will not open
6) System Profiler / Hardware / ATA says "No information found"
7) Disk Utility also does not list the internal HD or CD drives.
So it seems neither the HD nor the CD drive are recognised as existing. Though when starting the computer I hear a "swish" sound, which I think is the CD drive checking for the presence of a disk.

Answer 1

Hey Katsuo,
Thanks for the reply spudnuty, I've got the iMac working again now.
Great and thanks for the star.
I took out the HD and tested it in an external case. It just clunks every two seconds, and other computers do not recognise it, i.e. it's no good.
Yup. Classic symptoms. Did it spin up?
Luckily 99% of the data was backed up.
A good lesson for all of us.
I presume there is no way to revive hard drives in this condition (but if anyone does know a way . . . )
Some people say freezing it but I've never had that work. You could send it for data recovery. That used to be very expensive but now is more reasonable.
I've read accounts of people disassembling the hard drive and moving the disks into an identical drive. Sounds very involved and I've never been able to disassemble a drive and not damage the read heads. It should be done in a clean room anyway and once you open a drive up w/o those precautions it's lifetime has to be risk.
Anyway, I replaced it with the original HD that I'd upgraded from 5 years ago, and the computer now works fine. The optical drive works again too; perhaps the fault in the HD was somehow affecting it.
OK here's the procedure from the Service Manual:
"No: The next thing to check to make sure the computer realizes the drive is there.
From the Apple menu, choose About This Mac. From the window that pops up, click
on More Info. An application called System Profiler should open.
In System Profiler, in the column on the left, look under Hardware for a line called SATA.
In the section on the right, you should see a header saying “S-ATA” and below it, two
items. The first is your hard drive. The second is your optical drive. Do you see two
items here?
– Yes: Even after checking for the drive in the startup manager, discs won't show
up. This indicates that your optical drive needs to be replaced.
– No: Reseat the optical drive and check System Profiler again. Does the optical
drive appear this time? If no, go on to the next step. If yes, it looks like the drive
connection may not have been too great, but you've got it plugged in properly
now."
I'm referring to the iMac Aluminum G5 17" here.
Richard
Message was edited by: spudnuty
null