Hi all,
I'm a new Mac user for about 6 months now. I bought a used PowerBook G4 15" 1.25 ghz notebook that was in good condition. It was well cared for by the previous owner. Only thing she had done was update the ram to 2 gigs.
Recently I began to notice it running slower, programs were freezing and Garage Band couldn't run as many tracks. I installed recommended software updates before it started to get slower and I thought maybe that was the problem.
So I attempted to do a fresh swipe of the hard drive and start from nothing. I saved some files and then tried to run the software installation cd. It didn't really help at all. I can't remember the error but it wouldn't let me reinstall OS X even when I held "c" when starting up. At one point I must have clicked run in target mode because I booted it up and it showed an unfamiliar screen. Then I restarted it once again and saw on Disk Utility that S.M.A.R.T. said something about hard drive failure.
I've heard about these being notorious for hard drives failing but mine doesn't make any loud noises. Only problem I have is when I start it up, it either loads indefinitely with the rotating wheel, or it just sits on the empty blue start up screen.
Anyone have any ideas about what is wrong with this thing? I've been considering buying a new hard drive and installing it but I've heard it's rather difficult on these.
Thanks for your help.
Sean - Busted PB g4 1.25 ghz 15"
I'm a new Mac user for about 6 months now. I bought a used PowerBook G4 15" 1.25 ghz notebook that was in good condition. It was well cared for by the previous owner. Only thing she had done was update the ram to 2 gigs.
Recently I began to notice it running slower, programs were freezing and Garage Band couldn't run as many tracks. I installed recommended software updates before it started to get slower and I thought maybe that was the problem.
So I attempted to do a fresh swipe of the hard drive and start from nothing. I saved some files and then tried to run the software installation cd. It didn't really help at all. I can't remember the error but it wouldn't let me reinstall OS X even when I held "c" when starting up. At one point I must have clicked run in target mode because I booted it up and it showed an unfamiliar screen. Then I restarted it once again and saw on Disk Utility that S.M.A.R.T. said something about hard drive failure.
I've heard about these being notorious for hard drives failing but mine doesn't make any loud noises. Only problem I have is when I start it up, it either loads indefinitely with the rotating wheel, or it just sits on the empty blue start up screen.
Anyone have any ideas about what is wrong with this thing? I've been considering buying a new hard drive and installing it but I've heard it's rather difficult on these.
Thanks for your help.
Sean - Busted PB g4 1.25 ghz 15"