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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Ibook G3 Crash - Please Help!
macsuz - Sep 7, 2005 - 11:29 am
Hi,
I've had my trusty ibook G3 for about 3 years - and today in mid-use the monitor shook, almost made a "dzzzt..dzzzt" kind of a sound and froze. I did a hard restart, thinking that perhaps between the cell phone and the wi-fi, the "wires just got crossed'. After the restart however, did the same thing, then the monitor just faded out. Since this contains my Masters Thesis and a whole bunch of other things, I was hoping if there is any hope of retrieving the information??
Many thanks for any help!
Susan
I've had my trusty ibook G3 for about 3 years - and today in mid-use the monitor shook, almost made a "dzzzt..dzzzt" kind of a sound and froze. I did a hard restart, thinking that perhaps between the cell phone and the wi-fi, the "wires just got crossed'. After the restart however, did the same thing, then the monitor just faded out. Since this contains my Masters Thesis and a whole bunch of other things, I was hoping if there is any hope of retrieving the information??
Many thanks for any help!
Susan
Waxer - Sep 7, 2005 - 2:49 pm
Hello there, I need to know a few things before I accurately help you: Firstly, does the machine turn on at all? If so, do you hear the mac chimes? If you have an external monitor, can you connect it to the ibook to see if your normal desktop appears when you start it? Were you doing anything anusual when this happened, like plugging in a new external hard drive or firewire device? Also, what OS is it (9.x or OS X). Do you normally have any other devices connected to it and if so, when you disconnect them does it start up? Unless the hard drive has died (unlikely), you can save your information. If just the screen is broken, you can connect your ibook via a firewire cable to another mac, and when you press the start button, hold down the T key, this starts it in firewire mode, allowing you to see the contents of the drive the same as you would if you had connected an external firewire drive to your normal mac. You can then copy all your data across to the host mac. Failing this, you can take the drive out, attach an adapter to make it compatable with an external hard drive enclosure or to plug into another mac's spare hard drive bay as a slave drive and save your data that way. All is not lost!! As soon as I know all this I can help you further, many thanks for the question, regards, Steve.
macsuz - Sep 20, 2005 - 11:45 am
Dear Steve,
Apologies for not responding sooner - it's been tough without my machine. Okay, here's the update. It was the logicboard that went out. Then I discovered that it was under a sort of a "recall" for this exact problem. They sent me a nice box, I mailed it in, then got a call from them that I had "spill damage" and they refuse to fix it, and it will cost me $750 to repair. Great, so back to square one. The first thing I did was dispute the spill claim, since I am not aware of a spill on the machine. The symptoms of my machine match the description of the logicboard failure perfectly, so it seems like an easy way for Apple to get out of having to repair the machine.
Nontheless, I still need to retrieve my data - it seems as if the hard drive is in fact not damaged, that it is the logicboard. We tried the firewire thing with another mac before I sent it in, and that didn't work, so I'm thinking I'm down to having to remove the hard drive (once I get my mahine back).
Just to answer some of your questions, no - I was not doing anything funky when it happened, was connected via wifi on campus, and actually IM'ing with my mom, no devices attached etc. I thought it was a sort of interference because my cell phone was lying next to it, etc, etc.
Any other advice (i.e., where I could get someone in New Haven CT to slave the machine, and how much these things usually cost?)
Many, many thanks for your response, I really appreciate it.
Susan
Apologies for not responding sooner - it's been tough without my machine. Okay, here's the update. It was the logicboard that went out. Then I discovered that it was under a sort of a "recall" for this exact problem. They sent me a nice box, I mailed it in, then got a call from them that I had "spill damage" and they refuse to fix it, and it will cost me $750 to repair. Great, so back to square one. The first thing I did was dispute the spill claim, since I am not aware of a spill on the machine. The symptoms of my machine match the description of the logicboard failure perfectly, so it seems like an easy way for Apple to get out of having to repair the machine.
Nontheless, I still need to retrieve my data - it seems as if the hard drive is in fact not damaged, that it is the logicboard. We tried the firewire thing with another mac before I sent it in, and that didn't work, so I'm thinking I'm down to having to remove the hard drive (once I get my mahine back).
Just to answer some of your questions, no - I was not doing anything funky when it happened, was connected via wifi on campus, and actually IM'ing with my mom, no devices attached etc. I thought it was a sort of interference because my cell phone was lying next to it, etc, etc.
Any other advice (i.e., where I could get someone in New Haven CT to slave the machine, and how much these things usually cost?)
Many, many thanks for your response, I really appreciate it.
Susan
Waxer - Sep 21, 2005 - 3:55 am
Hello there, my apologies if you receive this message in 2 slightly different formats, I typed a long message to you last night then couldn't remember if I sent it or not!:
You need to get yourself an external hard drive enclosure:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=91142
...and a notebook hard drive adapter:
http://www.bixnet.com/adfor25to35h.html
Put it all together, then follow the instructions at the link below to remove your hard drive, then pop it in the enclosure (using the adapter), then connect it to any mac either with enough hard drive space to copy all your data over, or with a superdrive to burn all your stuff to DVD.
Here's the link for removing your hard drive step by step:
http://caslis.com/mac/ibook/ibdrive.html
I wish you all the best, and providing you are fairly confident, you should be able to do this: Make sure you have a good lean work space on a desk, use the correct tools and ensure you have no static discharge into the machine by touching the inside casing (metal part) first so you and your mac are at the same discharge level.
Any problems at all, please get back to me. Thanks, Steve.
You need to get yourself an external hard drive enclosure:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=91142
...and a notebook hard drive adapter:
http://www.bixnet.com/adfor25to35h.html
Put it all together, then follow the instructions at the link below to remove your hard drive, then pop it in the enclosure (using the adapter), then connect it to any mac either with enough hard drive space to copy all your data over, or with a superdrive to burn all your stuff to DVD.
Here's the link for removing your hard drive step by step:
http://caslis.com/mac/ibook/ibdrive.html
I wish you all the best, and providing you are fairly confident, you should be able to do this: Make sure you have a good lean work space on a desk, use the correct tools and ensure you have no static discharge into the machine by touching the inside casing (metal part) first so you and your mac are at the same discharge level.
Any problems at all, please get back to me. Thanks, Steve.
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