Powerbook g4 12" died but hard drive is fine...

I wonder if anyone can help me here. It seems that the logic board on my old g4 12" had crashed. To repair i have had quotes of over £400. Obviously this wouldnt be worth my while as i could go and buy a new mac for £800.
Problem i have is that the hard drive is fine and i have thousands of pictures, music files etc on the drive but i have a blank screen because of the logic board.
I had been backing the computer up to a lacie external drive daily using time machine but now i don't seem to be able to retrieve anything off the external drive in an easy way. Is there any "easy" way to retrieve all this stuff as i would like to transfer it to my imac because it was being synced with my iphone and apple tv! Please please help....thx, Rob.

If you are planning to recycle or part out the Powerbook, just remove the hard drive from it, put it into a cheap ($10-20) USB2 enclosure designed for IDE/PATA drives, and copy anything you need from it onto your iMac.

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Help! ipod classic won't restore but hard drive is fine

Hello,
i have kept an ipod classic for several years, my first one an 80 GB and i had that working wonderfully for 3 years and then the hard drive failed and so my dad got me a new 160 GB off of e-bay, slightly used but it said the hard drive was checked out and everything was good to go. When i got it i looked at the number of Reallocs and Pending Sectors and the hard drive shoulod be just fine, but when i tried syncing it the first time everything looked good, it said welcome to your new ipod and all of that, i restored it and it said that it restored successfully, so i syncedall my 40 GB of data including videos, audiobooks, podcasts, games and music and it showed every little thing loading individually like it used to with my old one, and then when i ejected it and disconnected it then looked at the ipod itself it said no music, no videos, no audiobooks, nothing showed up!! I went to setting and looked at the about and it showed 40 GB gone, but when i looked into that it showed up as other. so i tried it all again, restoring and re-synching and all of that, and it would give me a variety of different error messages listed below:
could not copy to ADMIN'S IPOD the selected disc is not available
synching to ipod failed an unknown error occured (-59)
synching to ipod failed an unknown error occured (-60)
cannot synch to ipod, no drive is selected
cannot sync to ipod, selected disc does not exist
cannot sync to ipod selected drive is currently in use
connect to power (even while fully charged)
and then i tried formatting with my computer and "scanning and fixing problems" with my computer documents
didnt work
re-did diagnostic test
shows drive is fine
tried synching one playlist and one season of my videos
worked! played everything fine!
tried synching more
showed no music, no videos
the problem comes only when i try to sync everything, or more of something
and now it wont even restore or do anything! it shows the same error my old one did error 1493 ipod cannot restore unknown error occured
i dont know what to do. my dad insists the hard drive is fine because it played the videos just fine before and the music as well and my cover flow showed up
but now i cant even get it to the point where i have an option to put music on it at all.
i thought i erased all of the old software that came with it when i restored and repaired the first time, not to mention the other times i've tried.
please help me!! i dont know what to do anymore i think i have tried everything
rikkitiger

The iPod's hard drive seems to be unreliable. The used iPod from eBay may need to be returned.
You can try putting the iPod into Disk Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1363
If it goes into Disk Mode, run iTunes and connect the iPod. iTunes may then prompt you to do a Restore.
If that does not work, but the iPod is recognized by Windows, you can try using Windows to reformat the iPod, like it's a USB external drive. Use FAT (FAT32) as the format type. If you have the option to do a "quick" format, choose to do a FULL format. If you are able to complete this procedure, run iTunes, connect the iPod, and do a Restore. Even if iTunes does not prompt you to do a Restore, it is important that you do a Restore, because after Windows reformats the iPod's hard drive, it does not have any of its onboard software. The Restore is needed to reinstall its software.

My old PC died but hard drive is still functional. Purchased new PC and downloaded latest iTunes but attempts to transfer folder with songs from old hard disk to new computer failed. Only 20 of approx 300 songs transferred ??

My old PC died but the hard drive is still functional and accessible using a USB extraction device. I purchased a new PC and downloaded the latest iTunes but attempts to transfer the iTunes folder with songs from the old hard drive to my new computer failed. Only 20 of approx 300 songs transferred. All other non music file transfers (WORD, EXCEL, etc) from the old hard drive to the new computer were successful. Is this a file type issue? Any thoughts?? THANKS!

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527

Ibook g4 won't boot, but hard drive seems fine

I have a ibook g4,800mhz. osx 10.4.8
On start up i get the folder & question mark. I have tried the following.
1) i booted with an os install disk. disk utilities reported the drive was ok it but couldn't see a disk partition so disk first aid had nothing to do.
2) next i ran disk warrior which had the same probably, it could see the hard drive, reported that the drive was functioning, but saw no partition.
3) finally i gave up and reformatted the disk, and re installed an os. this worked for 48 hours at which time the problem came back.
4) i can put the laptop in firewire mode connect it to a desktop and access the hard drive. I can format the disk using apple disk tools, i can install an new os, but after all this it still won't boot from the internal hd.
5) I reset the pram. also tried starting up with the option key down .. no hard drive is visible when i do this.
So the hard drive seems to work ok. Two different disk utilities see the hard drive and think its functioning ok. OSx installer runs without complaint, but the &$%! won't boot from the hd.
Anybody got any suggestions?

...this worked for 48 hours at which time the problem came back...
This is the time period that I was commenting on. If something was used during that time that corrupted the OS, it would cause the situation you are in.
If everything is perfect with the OS then something is wrong with the hard drive or the motherboard's interface to the hard drive.

Why does dying internal hard drive stop you booting from external hd

Why do I need an internal hard drive if I am booting from an external drive? Doesnt make sense,
Disk Utility warned me that the internal hard drive is failing. I have managed to change start up disks. I have an external bootable drive and even have an empty partition on it, "just in case" I need to install a brand new OS, but here I am waiting for local disks, and I cant access my back-up OS.
Why doesnt OSX just move past the dying faulty hard drive and get to work on the bootable disk? Basically here I am supposedly doing all the right things to cover for an emergency - I may as well have no backup strategy.
Am I missing a step, or is this how OSX works. Perhaps if you read the steps and outcomes below, you can see if there is more I need to do?
If I press "option" at start up, it only shows the internal drive, not recognising the external bootable drive.
fsck -f produced a looping "missing thread" message that went on for an hour or more so I stopped that.
I tried the dvd and command-c at start up, got through to the installer window and when I selected disk utility it hung, but no spinning ball, just nothing was happening.
The next attempt with th DVD i changed start up disk, this time it saw the external bootable drive and I thought I was in business again.
And here I am full circle, waiting for local disks.
Any thoughts most welcome.
btw, does the SMART issue a warning of a failing drive because a drive is definitely unsalvagable due to a mechanical fault? or is there a chance my drive is physiclly healthy but shows as Failing because it has unbelievable directory issues that Apple tools cannot solve - but DW could?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

The Bombich forums have helped me troubleshoot the integrity of the bootable volumes on my external hard drive which I made using Carbon Copy Cloner. The clones are fine ie after I reset nvram after booting up via command-alt-o-f, the clones are now recognised when I boot up-alt. So it seems that there was nothing wrong with the bootable volumes on the external drive per se.
However, the Powerbook will still not boot up past "Waiting for local disks".
As it stands now, nobody seems to be able to give a reason why I cannot bypass the failed internal hard drive. I found a Knowledge base article from Apple saying Cmd-Alt-shift-delete at start-up should skip you to the next working volume hitched up to your computer, but that didn't work either.
I have a new internal HDD coming, so prior to installing it, the final part of the troubleshoot will be to reboot the PB without an internal HDD. I will see what happens and see what conclusions can be drawn from that. Unless anyone has a clue now from what I have posted?
PB Ti 867MHz 768MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

My HP Elitebook 8530w is toast, but my hard drive is fine. To save my data, I would like to learn

My HP Elitebook 8530w is toast, but the hard drive is fine. To save my data, I would like to learn
all the HP models which can accept this same drive, so I can start hunting for a suitable used one. It probably won't be the elitebook, that laptop seems kinda rare. So I'm hoping that other models will accept the same drive. The hard drive model has a really long number - Hitachi HTS723216L9A360. Does anyone know which hp models are compatible with this hard drive? Thanks.

Notebook hard drives are pretty much the same in recent years, yours is SATA interface, much older notebooks used IDE-PATA and are not interchangeable.
Installing it in a different notbook that has different hardware may not work so good, most of the time windows will not load properly or at all, you can buy a usb to hard drive adapter and connect it to the hard drive after you remove it, then connect the drive using the adapter to any other PC with a usb port, then you will be able to see you data on that hard drive using Windows explorer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152

Unique Hard Drive Crash - But Hard drive good

I have a unique problem. My Hard Drive crashed. But the reason why is because I ran out of space. I downloaded a file that when expanded took the rest of the space on the hard drive and kept expanding til it crashed. When I restarted, The screen gets to the grey apple logo then crashes again. And it does it every time. I took it out and used a USB Hard Drive adapter to try and see if it mounts on another computer to delete the files off of it it crashes every other computer as well when it tries to mount the hard drive. I logged into single user mode and did a Fsck and it said the hard drive is fine. but it is set to Read Only so I can't delete the files off of it in single user mode because its set to read only. I can see all of my files in single user mode but everytime I type rm to delete the files it refuses and says its a read only drive. I guess my question is how do I get it to mount so I can repair it using disk warrior or the disk utility? Is there a single user command line I can use to change it to read and write on the Hard Drive so I can delete the files.

Steve, yes you clone the backup back to the original, but only if the original can not be repaired. And yes, you just swap drives if that is easier for you.
I may have been a little to brief in my instruction above on repair.
Anyway once you bootup from the install CD (C key held down) choose your drive in the left column then select First Aid, now run the Repair Disk, if it does not repair run it again. Now select the startup volume (with the OS) and run the Repair Permissions, quit Disk Utility.
If Disk Utility is able to repair the disk it should now be bootable and you can select it in the Change Startup Disk, if not you need to either exchange the drives or Erase (Re-initialize) the internal and then clone the OS from the external drive.
If you can see the external as a bootable volume when you select Change Startup Drives from the install CD then it is bootable. However if you do not see it as a bootable volume then it is not bootable.
Joe
Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.5 GB Ram, ENCORE/ST G4, Tempo SATA, ATI Radeon 9000, Adaptec 4000

Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc?

My Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc? Please help

Hi there,
Thanks for the reply.
I plugged my usb hard drive in and what looked like time capsule started automatically on my mac. The same hard drive worked perfectly on my laptop pc before, now it connects but isn't visible in my computer.
My second hard drive works perfectly well on both my pc and mac, so I am not sure what has happened to the one in question.
Regards,
Stephen

The circuit of my macbook is dead yet the hard drive is fine. I need to access a file from the hard drive, how can i do this? is there a cable i can connect to another mac that will let me transfer the file?

The circuit of my macbook is dead yet the hard drive is fine. I need to access a file from the hard drive, how can i do this? The mac turns on the screen freezes as bright blue. Is there a cable i can connect to another mac that will let me transfer the file?

There is another option if the Macbook will start up in Target Disk Mode.
Restart the computer while holding down the T key. If you see the firewire symbol moving around on the screen you can connect this one to another one in TDM. You will need a suitable cable to connect the two Macs.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
Firewire symbol:

How do I open pdf file from web? Opening pdf docs from hard drive works fine.

Hello,
I am unable to open pdf files from the web. Documents on my hard drive open fine. My computer gives me 2 error messages when I try to open web-based documents. Thanks.

Why did you post so many informations about operating system, web browser, Adobe Reader version, and the error messages?

Powerbook won't boot from hard drive or restore disk

I've looked through some of the older posts here and none of them exactly matches my problem, and I've tried just about any possible solution I can think of.
I recently noticed that my PowerBook was acting a bit strange. It was making more fan noises than usual, and sometimes the computer would make the very last noise it makes as it shuts down (which is the hard drive coming to rest, I suppose?), though the computer would still be running. Then, yesterday the computer froze and I hit command-control-power, and when the computer restarted it gave me a folder icon blinking between a question mark and the Mac logo.
I tried restarting again, but I had no luck. Now when I try to start up I get the start-up chime, then I get one of three things:
1) If I restart it without a CD in the drive, I get the blinking folder.
2) If I restart it with the Software Restore and Install DVD in (but without holding down the C key), it gets to the Apple logo and shows the spinning pinwheel or whatever you want to call it, then freezes and some nasty horizontal bars pop across the screen.
3) If I restart it with the Restore & Install DVD in and I hold down the C key, it gives me the Apple logo, then the "Your computer has encountered a problem and needs to be restarted" box pops up.
I tried zapping the PRAM--no luck. I tried Open Firmware; the screen pops up, then I type in "mac-boot" and I get the same thing as in #2 above.
I used the Hardware Test CD; it told me that there was a Mass Storage error with the error code 2STF/1/4. That doesn't sound too pleasant.
I'm not sure what caused it; perhaps it was a heat thing, but I moved it too a different surface. All the hardware is original except for the Airport card, which has worked fine since Christmas. The only recent software changes I've made were updating to the newest versions of iTunes and Firefox. It doesn't seem like a hard drive problem, since the boot CD won't work.
Am I doomed to sending Apple a couple hundred bucks to fix this? The laptop is right at three years old, so even if I'd had AppleCare it would be expiring right about now. Or is it time to buy one of those MacBooks? Or just buy a couple PC's and use each one till it breaks, then throw it out?
Thanks,
Kevin

I finally got to another Mac. I installed Mac OS X onto my Firewire drive, then hooked up the drive to my Powerbook and used the Startup Manager. The drive showed up on Startup Manager and I chose to boot from it. When I did, the startup process continued briefly, then froze just like it does when I try to boot from the CD.
I know my Powerbook's hard drive is shot, and to be honest, I'm fine with that--there isn't any critical, essential data on there. I tried starting the Powerbook up in Target Disk mode, but that doesn't work either--I hear the chime, press T, but the screen stays black.
Now my question is: can I rip the hard drive out? Or do I have not only a bad hard drive, but also something else gone wrong? I'm not opposed to buying a new internal hard drive and installing it myself if that will fix the problem; what I don't want to do is spend a few hundred bucks to take it to someone who's only going to tell me that my omputer is now a paperweight.
Also, my Powerbook isn't one of the ones with a recalled battery. The computer can get pretty hot, even when sitting on a desk, but I just figured that was normal.
Thanks,
Kevin

Cannot Get My Powerbook To Work With New Hard Drive

My powerbook (1.67 ghz, 2 gb ram, 80 GB original hdd) was running out of room on the hard drive, so I purchased a WD 250 GB hard drive IDE to replace it. I haven't really done much on my powerbook prior to this, so I wasn't sure exactly if any problems had occured before I did this. But I replaced the drive and tried to boot from a CD and could not do it. I was using a Tiger Retail disc because I can't find my restore discs. I never had any problem reading my discs prior to this, as I have a DVD/RW drive and it has never failed on me. I tried booting from other discs as well and the same problem occured. So after several failed attempts, I connected my powerbook to my ibook through target mode and was able to install the OS on the partition of my powerbook. After completing the install, I was able to access the powerbook partition through the ibook and everything seemed fine. I unplugged the firewire cable and tried to boot my powerbook. The first time I did it, it took me past the white and grey apple screen and stuck on the blue screen, everytime after that, it hung up on the grey and white screen. I tried resetting everything through open firmware and zapping the PRAM, but no change. I tried booting into safe mode and it hung up at the grey and white screen. I was able to boot into single user mode and ran the check utility and everything came up ok. I reconnected the powerbook to the ibook and ran disk utility that way and repaired all permissions. It still has hung up on me. I've been trying to get this to work for almost 8 hours and nothing has worked for me. I'm starting to think its something really serious like a hardware failure. I don't know what version of tiger my powerbook shipped with and I'm not sure if having just 10.4 would cause this issue. I tried removing the added ram and everything as well. I hope someone can give me some things to try and hopefully get it to work. I'm pulling my hair out on this one. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One way to know if it is a hardware issue (or something you may have done in the DIY upgrade process, sorry) is to try putting back in the old stock 80GB drive and see if everything works well.
If YES, then your PowerBook is fine and it is your new drive that is faulty. Return it or get a replacement under warranty (if relatively new, maybe you don't need to use the warranty).
If NO, then something has happened during the upgrade process.
That's my first diagnosis.

How do I get my mac powerbook to recognize an external hard drive

I just purchased a Hitachi external hard drive to back up my PowerBook G4--Mac OS X v 10.5.8 (1.67 GHz PowerPC G4 processor). The computer will not recognize the device. I have reformatted it via another mac and it still will not be recognized. It is plugged in via USP port and the device does light up but it never blinked. I have gone to Finder and it is not listed. I have go to Disk Utilities and it is not listed. HELP!
I have tested the USP ports and other devices (flash drives, printers) work.
Thank you.

Hello,
You say you formatted it using another Mac, which Mac would this be and what did you format the drive to?
I wonder if the device is USB 3.0 only and as a PowerBook has only USB 2.0 port it's just not recogniszing it.
I have also know the leads to be at fault in the past. I have an external drive that simply wont work on my PowerBook using the USB lead it came with, but a longer older lead it works fine. On My MacBook it works fine with both leads (Strange) So you may wish to try another USB lead.
Is the external drive powered from the USB port or does it have an external power adapter?
If it uses the power from the USB, it could simply be the PowerBook's USB 2.0 ports are not powerful enough to power the drive.
All the above are possibilities.

Time Capsule visible as wifi but hard drive can only be accessed via ethernet.

Time Capsule shows up as WiFi in Airport menu bar but does not show up in Airport Utility. Hard drive is accessible via ethernet connection but not by wireless.
How can I reset the TC or reload a saved configuration?

Yes, with the following warnings.
1. A 1TB TC is a Gen3 or earlier and can die at a moments notice.. So backup is essential.
2. A Gen1 or 2 is slow.. even over ethernet they were processor bound and so transfer speeds are not great.. a USB2 plugged into the computer will be faster. Gen3 is about 50% better as the processor was upgraded by 50% speed.
3. TC has no built in backup.. TM cannot backup network drives.
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5. You cannot use USB to the TC.. it is a network drive. If you want to use USB directly on the computer buy a USB drive.. but buy as fast a drive as your Mac supports.. Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2
USB3 is cheap and very good.. but the port is only from 2012 so check your Mac specs.
Thunderbolt whilst being super fantastic and around since 2011, has a bank account clearing price although there are Thunderbolt to esata converters.. for around $160. esata falls between usb3 and fw800.
FW800 from WD is no better than USB2 but other brands it can be twice the speed of usb2.
USB2 is the worst. But still faster than a TC.

Old Computer Dead, But Hard Drive Ok

HELP !!
I've been trying for hours to transfer my itunes library from the old hard drive (connected by a USB into my new computer). It appears to have moved after "importing" but itunes on the new computer is unable to play the songs, despite the fact that the songs are listed correctly in the new library.
The old hard drive is in a little box and can now only be accessed via my new computer.
Can someone please help, I'm pulling my hair out !!
Thanks,
Jon.
Evesham laptop Windows XP

Adibob,
thank you so much for your reply.
After your prompt I have shifted all my music from the external hard drive onto the laptop. So now I have iTunes and all the music on the same hard drive. How do I get the music into the library?
It sounds like it should be so simple but I just can't manage it. I would really appreciate your "input".
Many thanks,
Jon

Powerbook g4 12" died but hard drive is fine...

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