Powerbook G4 Hard drive failure?

You'll need a 2.5" parallel ATA/Ultra ATA/ATA-6 (not serial ATA or SATA) hard drive. You can get up to 250GB in 5400rpm or 100GB in 7200rpm. Seagates come with a 5 year warranty, and most others are 1 to 3 years. Two sources are http://www.macsales.com and http://www.newegg.com .

Here are directions how to replace the hard drive: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G4-Al-15-Inch-1-1-5-GHz-BT-1-1/HD-Repl acement/54/9/

Matthew:

Your PowerBook is about 5 years old, so it would not be unusual if your HDD is on the way out, since the average life of a drive is 3 - 5 years. You can check on the health of your HDD by going to Apple Menu > About this Mac > More Info > Hardware > ATA. In the main pane, look for the S.M.A.R.T Status. If it says, "Verified" you HDD is OK for the time being, since this is not very definitive. If it says, "Failing" or something to that effect, it's on the way out, and that is definitive.

BGreg has given you the basic facts about HDDs. Your computer will support a 2.5" (P)ATA/IDE HDD. Drives are 7200 rpm, which come in capacities up to 100 GB, and 5400 rpm, which come in capacities up to 250 GB. Like BGreg, I would recommend the Seagate HDDs. Here is a list of HDDs for your computer, which you can further tweak by checking or unchecking filters in the sidebar.

Replacing the HDD in the PowerBook is quite doable. BGreg has linked step-by-step from ifixit. Here are few tips you may find helpful:
• Print out the ifixit directions as well as the screw guide ahead of time.
• Be sure you have the right tools. You don't want to damage the screw heads or you may never get them out. And the Torx 8 screw driver is critical.
• I use small medicine cups one for the screws in each step. I nest them so that the last ones out and the first to go back in are on top. You can use an ice cube tray, egg carton, dixie cups etc. (Some users report cutting up the screw guide and placing the applicable section in each container.)
• Be very careful pulling out leads. Hold the lead as close to the plug as possible and wiggle (the plug 🙂 ) to loosen its grip. Don’t hold the wires and pull as that can damage the cable, or worse, in some instances pull the wires out of the plug. Indeed, some users have pulled the socket off the logic board! Use needle nose pliers or tweezers if you can access the plug, or nudge the plug with a small instrument to help loosen its grip.
• Use force gently in removing parts. Separating upper and lower case takes some doing. Use a plastic tool (spudge) so as not to leave marks.
• Refer to the screw guide when reassembling computer. Putting longer screws in the wrong place can perforate the circuit board.

After you have swapped out the old HDD and installed the new, you will need to format your new HDD. Then you can either install a fresh installation of OS X, or you can place the old drive in an external firewire enclosure like this one and clone it to the new internal HDD, now formatted, by using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Please do post back with further questions or comments.

Cheers 🙂

cornelius

My hard drive has failed and I am going to replace it myself. I was wondering if either of the programs you mentioned (SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner) can be used to try to recover specific files from the old hard drive with an external firewire enclosure. If not, is there a program you would recommend to do this? Please let me know as this would help me greatly.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

Hi, Jason. Here are three data recovery programs, all available in free demo versions that will show you which files would be recoverable with the full, purchased version:

Data Rescue II
FileSalvage
VirtualLab

jasonrachel:

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

If your old HDD is readable or bootable, you can use the utilities I linked. If you HDD is not accessible either by booting or via Firewire Target Disk Mode you will need one of the utilities linked by eww. As noted, you can download the demo version and run it. If you find the files you need you will then have to pay for the full version to be able to recover them. Dr. Smoke's FAQ Data Recovery may have information you can use.

Good luck.

cornelius

Thanks for your help. I was able to recover everything on the old hard drive with the Firewire Target Disk Mode.

jasonrachel:

I was able to recover everything on the old hard drive with the Firewire Target Disk Mode.

Good job. Congratulations! I am very happy for you.

Thanks for your help.

You are very welcome.

😉 cornelius

I am having a similar issue with my PB 15-in Aluminum. I am wondering whether my HDD is definitely toast, or whether there is still some hope of repairing it. Read on for the details...

A couple weeks ago my Powerbook started making a clicking noise when I tilted it a bit. At the time I thought it was a fan starting to go. Soon after, I got the flashing "?" at startup.

I booted up the Leopard DVD and ran Disk Utility. SMART status showed Verified. A minor repair of the header was completed. The first time booting from the HDD after this my PB ran super slow. On the next boot, I got a prompt that the OS had recovered from a Kernel trap.

A little while later, my PB would just hang at the white Apple splash screen and would not boot. I tried running Disk Utility from the Leopard DVD again, but this time I got Invalid Node Structure and repair could not be completed. At that point, I tried erasing the drive in order to reinstall Leopard. This also failed.

I tried running Disk Utility again, but now I get a hardware failure. Does this definitely mean my hard drive is in need of replacement and data is gone, or is there still a way to recover from this?

I already have a 120GB Seagate ATA-6 picked out to replace my 80GB HDD and the cost is less than buying a copy of Disk Warrior which would not be of any help to me if my HDD is truly dead. I backed up my data fairly recently, so recovery of the data is not paramount. I just don't want to waste the 80GB HDD if it can still be salvaged without breaking the bank.

Thanks!

I tried running Disk Utility again, but now I get a hardware failure. Does this definitely mean my hard drive is in need of replacement and data is gone, or is there still a way to recover from this?

No, this is the end. The drive is toast — replace it.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks for confirming. New HDD is ordered!