iBook hard drive about to die?

Stephanie · Jun 27th, 2005, 10:03 AM

I'm worried that my iBook hard drive is giving me signs of an impending death.

Recently my iBook siezed up and I had to power it down forcefully (holding the power button 10 seconds). Upon restarting it couldn't find the hard drive. I tried booting from the install CD and it booted fine so I ran Disk Utilities to do a Repair....and that couldn't find the hard drive. So I booted from the hardware diagnostic CD and that did find the hard drive, tested the hard drive, and proclaimed the hard drive in good working order.

I rebooted again and this time the iBook booted up from the hard drive ok as if nothing was wrong.

However... I have one of those temperature monitoring programs, and it used to monitor the hard drive's temperature. Now it reports the hard drive as being 'disconnected', so it cannot get the temperature any more. I then used Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair drive, and also checked the drive's SMART status (it says verified).

So, with the exception of the temperature-monitoring program, everything in the iBook is acting as if the hard drive is all well and good, but I'm concerned that it's not.

The iBook is a G4 800MHz 12" screen, the drive is a 30GB. I don't remember now who made it, Toshiba or IBM I think (I don't have the iBook with me at the moment). Unfortunately the iBook is out of warranty.

I do happen to have a spare 40GB laptop hard drive handy but I'd rather not do the swap if I don't have to. (Why does Apple make it so complicated?! Toshiba and Dell make hard drive replacement a 30second process...)

-Stephanie

MacDoc · Jun 27th, 2005, 10:15 AM

SMART is pretty good - I would tend to suspect a motherboard issue

Make sure you are backed up and keep and eye on it.

andreww · Jun 27th, 2005, 10:20 AM

Certainly sounds as if the drive could be failing. It is not uncommon for a drive to seize up forcing you to reboot when it is failing. In fact, that sounds familiar as that is how my tibook drive died recently. It may work fine for several weeks, but at some point it will likely fail again. In my case during one ofe these freeze ups, my Btree headers were all screwed up causing me to have to do a complete reinstall of everything. A few weeks later the same thing happened and I replaced the drive. All has been well since.

Take this opportunity to back up!

Stephanie · Jun 28th, 2005, 08:22 AM

Thanks for the tips! I do back it up now and then just in case. I don't actually do much on the iBook itself, it's #1 task is for surfing the web around the house or in the backyard, #2 is for logging on to the office computers to work from home. In either case, nothing's actually saved to the iBook so if it goes, it's just an inconvenience factor rather than a panic.

I hope it's not a motherboard issue... the motherboard on this iBook died within a few weeks of purchasing it. The motherboard was replaced under warranty, but it's now about 16 months old and out of warranty. Hoping it's a drive issue... I'll keep an eye on the SMART status to see if it shows any change there.

Thanks again!

-Stephanie