Thread: Mac help please.

I have a laptop, a Mac Power Book G4 with a 12 inch screen. I believe the operating system is a 10.4 something or other. Anyways my wife calls me into the bedroom to take a look. what I see is a frozen screen and I hear wild clicking noise coming from the computer...similar but much louder than the normal noise you hear when the computer is thinking. we wait a bit and finally shut the unit down. when we turn it back on it makes the same noise but continues for far too long with a "white" screen then the screen goes black for a second and back to white and then finally there is a small folder icon in the middle of the screen with a picture on it alternating between the smiley face finder icon and a question mark. I have searched the internet on my desktop to no avail. I will call apple tomorrow but I wanted to ask those here at SRP if they have had this happen and what it means and is there a way that I can fix it.

Thanks in advance

the system cannot locate a bootable hard disk.. insert your install disc and hold down the c button while starting the computer to boot off of the disc..

most likely you will have to just do a reinstall.

Your HD is either gone or on its way out.

Try to boot your laptop from the install cd/dvd's

Install the disc

Shut down the computer

Restart your computer and immediately press the Option key. Icons for all available startup volumes will appear. Click the one you want to boot from, and then click the right arrow button to complete the startup process.

It may be easy to check this site out:

Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk

Hope that helps.

If you cant reinstall or fix it may be time for a new mac.

It failed with a DVD installed so that option is out

Sounds like the HD

I dont remember how hard or easy it is

Check out this site:

PowerBook G4 Titanium Mercury Repair Manual - iFixit

If your handy you can do it yourself if not it may be time to get a new Mac.

My wife was in that boat a few weeks back. It was a macbook which was easy to swap out the HD.

Mechanical noises makes me think it's likely a failing/failed hard drive. There are no other moving parts to make noise other than the DVD drive.
If its 5 years or older that's par for the course. I replaced several on mine, 2005 model I think. It was under warranty & the drives that apple supplied kept failing. Hitachi/IBM IIRC. Replace it with a Samsung or similar with a multi year warranty.

You can get a Seagate for about 40-50 bucks.

The hard disk is dead.
This is where you either have accurate backups or need to start praying to whatever deity you believe in

In the latter case, you can do the praying while you take out the hard drive, put it in a ziplock bag and store it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Then you take it out and immediately connect it to your computer and start it.
Have a USB disc connected to the laptop so that IF it starts, you can copy everything off it asap. If it doesn't start, the last resort is to slap it. Not for stress relief, but I have known hard disks to start this way if their bearings are shot.

And if you were satisfied with the laptop, have someone replace the hd.

Originally Posted by Bruno

If it doesn't start, the last resort is to slap it. Not for stress relief, but I have known hard disks to start this way if their bearings are shot.

Well Bruno, if the bearings are shot I'll just change them myself, after all on a larger scale that is what I do for a living