I hosed my PBG4 Titanium 15" DVI hard drive

[bartbrn]

I'll try to make a long story short: the PBG4 referenced above froze on me yesterday after installing new Apple Security and iTune*update*. When I went to restart, I got to the blue screen and then nothing -- no swirly ball, zip. Left it to brood to itself for a half hour -- nothing. Tried a couple more times, same result. Then I tried starting up with the original Tiger install disk, holding down the "C" key. Same result, only *now* I couldn't get the*Tiger install disk out of the slot loader. Tried everything I knew to get the disc out, including the long paperclip (turns out it was what I "didn't* know that was the trick: holding down the trackpad key while starting up -- I discovered *that* just this morning).*

So I had what I thought was a clever thought: I hooked up the ailing PBG4 to my other PBG4 with a firewire cable, and started the ailing one up in Target Mode. I diddled around with no satisfactory result. At some point, I thought it would be a swell idea to just yank & trash the ailing PB's entire system folder, in the hopes that when it restarted, it would HAVE to defer to the Tiger install disk that was still stuck in the drive. Uhhh, interesting concept, no joy in execution. Then I tried a system migration from my healthy PB to the Target Mode PB. Every time I tried, the Target Mode, systemless PB was all for it, but first I had to put IT in Migration "receive mode," which required a restart -- with, of course, the "T" held down so it would open in Target Mode, which by now was the *only* way it would open. The Migration Assistant window on the Target PB kept waiting to see drive(s) mount, but it never happened. I gave up to go watch Fringe.

So here I am with a systemless PB. I can get all the data off it using Target Mode, but I can't seem to get it*to*restart. I've tried putting the Tiger install disk in again and holding down the "C" key while restarting, with absolutely no joy whatsoever. Am I missing some secret trick here? I want to clear off the disk, reinitialize it, and reinstall everything, as even before THIS disaster it was getting flaky -- the last time I ran Maintenance on it, Maintenance went through its S.M.A.R.T. check and verify, and declared the disc damaged, though Maintenance would still perform all its usual functions of re-setting permissions, etc.

Where do I go from here? Any and all help would be staggeringly appreciated.

Bart Brown

*BTW, a quick check of Apple's PBG4 Support Discussion Forum this morning shows this is NOT an isolated problem with Apple's latest security update -- many TiBook owners suffered the same fate as I did.

PBG4 Titanium 15" DVI OS X (10.4.11) 1GHz, 1GB, 60GBHD, SuperDrive

 

[Ekim]

Well that's a day ruiner =/

Once you've gotten your data retrieved i guess all you need to do is reformat the hard drive. If you're able to get into the case and pop out the hard drive its as simple as hooking the hard drive into a SATA/usb adapter and plugging it into another mac/pc and reformatting it with HFS+ or if ur doing it on a pc FAT32. You can get the adapter if you don't have one from any electronic store, i guess the bigger concern would be finding someone that has another computer (if you only have one) to do this for you.

Truthfully, i can't think of another solution since you said you tried using the disk with no avail. Hopefully you can resurrect this little guy soon!
Best of luck!

 

[DarkestRitual]

You can start the ailing PBG4 in target disk mode with your other PB, wipe the drive, insert the tiger DVD, and choose your ailing G4 as the volume you wish to install on using your good PB G4 for its working disc drive...

 

[bartbrn]

PowerBook - I hosed my PBG4 Titanium 15" DVI hard drive

Thanks to everyone!

DarkestRitual -- as soon as I get a FireWire hub or PCMCIA card (so I can hook up my FW 250GB external drive to transfer my data while my two PBs are connected at their respective single FW ports), I'm going to do just as you suggested. BTW, I used to work at Cornell many long years ago...

Bart

 

[DarkestRitual]

Nice My fiancee (the gorgeous red headed gal in the pic with me) is a 3rd year vet student there. She went there for undergrad too. You know you can boot into target disk mode and transfer your hard drive contents to your AlBook a little at a time and then to the external also, and then do as I suggested if you're not very patient. That's what I would do, but then again... I would be p*ssed if a laptop of mine wasn't working.

Hope the TiBook gets well soon.

 

[csegeek]

Good suggestion by DarkestRitual ...

In target mode you can install to that disk just as if it were internal to your
other Ti..

As far as what Ekim said .. the Ti Powerbooks had IDE hard drives not SATA..
But you can still hook it external with an adapter .. you can also hook your
external hard drive via usb if it supports usb .. it will just be slow if memory
serves correctly all of the Ti's were only usb 1.0 not 2.0

all else fails try pram and pmu resets..

reset the PRAM, hold Apple-Option-P-R simultaneously at the Apple logo.
reset the PMU, hold down “Shift-Control-Option-Power “.
PMU also remember the Ti's had an actual button in the back next to the
fire wire port too..

Good luck