Powerbook Problem / Resolution

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 8 Aug 2005 9:20 am

My two year old Mac Powerbook G4 had a serious problem. Everything is now OK. I'm posting this because it might help others in the future.

Problem:
On power up, an Apple Logo is displayed. The "spinning gear" that is normally shown does not appear.

Solution (part one):
Called Apple Tech Support. They had me boot from the OS-X install DVD, select the disk utility, and run repair disk.

It failed, reported that there is unrepairable data corruption. Tech Support asked me to run it a second time. Same result.

Tech Support then said a full reinstall of OS-X is needed. They said they hope I have good backups because all will be lost. (I do, on an external HD)

Tech Support also advised that, "There are third party utilities such as Disk Warrior that may be able to do the repair that the Apple utility could'nt."

Flashback
I had purchased Disk Warrior a long time ago. It is supposed to be a bootable CD, but did not boot with OS-X 10.3.
Following the advice on their web site, I configured a removable external HD with OS-X 10.2. I could then boot from that, and run
Disk Warrior to repair my 10.3 drive.
Maybe newer versions of DW resolved this booting issue, I don't know.

Solution (part 2):
I attached, and booted from, my external drive, told Disk Warrior to repair my internal drive. Let it run overnight, fully expecting it to fail, and the next morning the repair was sucessful!

The computer has had three days of heavy use since the repair. I'm a happy camper.

[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 08 August 2005 at 10:20 AM.]

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 8 Aug 2005 9:43 am

Any idea what caused the problem in the first place?

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 8 Aug 2005 1:42 pm

I'm not sure, b0b, but I suspect it ran out of power at a critical time.

I was using it, on battery power, and ignored the warning that the battery was almost depleated.

I often do this on purpose, since it's good for battery life to run it all the way down, before recharging. Of course I wasn't doing any important work, just surfing an listening to tunes.

This time when it ran out of juice, it wouldn't come back.
I'm rethinking my battery depleation method...

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 4 Sep 2005 9:33 am

UPDATE

Almost a month later the Disk Utility indicated
S.M.A.R.T. Status = Failing

I checked the Help Menu for that error. It said, "Backup your data. Your Hard Drive will fail."

After backing up to an external HD, I called Apple Care. A replacement HD was shipped overnight to a repair center, it's now in my Powerbook.

I suspect the sick HD was the cause of the original data corruption.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 5 Sep 2005 11:31 am

S.M.A.R.T. Status = Failing

I got that a lot back when I was in school.

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 5 Sep 2005 5:03 pm

S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology.