MAC can't find hard drive

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Level 1

7 points

MAC can't find hard drive

I have an old PowerBook G4 12" that I recently reinstalled Leopard on. All was working great and I installed Photoshop CS2. Worked fine. Put it away for a month or so, wanting to sell it. Found a buyer. Went to start up the computer and blank flashing screen with question mark and folder. I rebooted it with OSX Leopard dvd, went to reinstall everything and there is no hard drive to install to! Does this mean that my hard drive is toast and that the machine is no good? It's an old laptop and I was hoping to get some $ for it, but if it's not working, it's probably worth $0 unfortunately. Any thoughts, suggestions of help?

Thank you.

null-OTHER, iOS 5, PowerBook G4 12"

Posted on Mar 14, 2018 11:03 AM

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Answer 1

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,960 points

Mar 19, 2018 2:26 PM in response to skyslade

Be sure if you choose to try & replace the hard drive, to get a PATA ATA-IDE

(parallel ATA, not "SATA" HDD.) ~ Or see if you may find a FireWire external

enclosure with suitable chipset (oxford-type) to Mac systems; & HDD with

compatible vintage Mac OS 9.2.2 &/or Mac OS X in it & test the PowerBook.

Sometimes a non-bootable HDD can still be accessed from another Mac;

perhaps Target Disk Mode(?) may work to try a data rescue of your own.

{There's some 'legacy mercury SSD' replacements to consider at owc.}

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

361,731 points

Mar 14, 2018 11:30 AM in response to skyslade

Certainly sounds like the drive is dead. Look for a new drive to replace it.

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MAC can't find hard drive

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