Posting this for a friend who is travelling for work this week. He reported his HD has died, after two weeks of making strange sounds. It's a G3 iBook purchased in early 2003, and was due for replacement anyway.

Having read posts here, it's obviously possible to repair the iBook HD, so that he can transfer the contents to a new notebook?

There are data recovery services (search Appletalk for "data recovery" to bring up the threads) but they cost a lot.

It was very foolish of him not to back up his data as soon as the drive started making strange sounds.

Yes Harbie - though if the HD is truly belly up, ie - mechanical fault - it cannot be repaired. It requires to have its data rescued and then transferred to a new and working Hard Drive. Apple Repair (or a free-lance troubleshooter, like myself) would need to provide a separate service to glean the data off the dead drive first.

The price to do so will vary also, depending on what kind of death his HD suffered - ie: a defective magnetic surface, or the drive itself stopped spinning all together - the latter form of death being more difficult to glean than the former.

I believe Apple gleans data off dead drives for around $130.00 per hour, yet it could take... 8 hours to do this.

Still - we don't have enough information here about your friend's iBook G3 - like:

- What happens when he turns it on?
- What does he see on the screen?
- Can he hear anything when he turns it on, if he puts his ear to it?
- If the screen stays black, can he still hear something?
- Which model iBook G3 does he have? (off the top of my head, I can recall around 12 types of iBook G3)
- What "kind" of strange sounds was he hearing?
- Was he still covered by any Apple Warranty?

and so forth...

Summary:

In alot of cases, when an HD dies, it can't be fixed. It usually needs to have its data rescued, and then transferred to a new HD, which can then replace the old HD.

More information required to help!

cheers,

ClockWork

Thanks for speedy replies. I'm unable to provide more specific information, as he's an offshore expat in HK. I used the computer myself earlier in the week, and noted that when the iBook was opened (from sleep), normal desktop would be visible with the spinning ball of death accompanied these strange whirring sounds from the HD. It wasn't possible to launch any apps, but when I pressed the power button, and then cancelled the 'do you want to shut down' box, the whirring noises stopped and I was able to use various apps with no problems. If the computer was left on and open (up to 6 hours) it would continue to work fine.

As to what has happened since then, I'm not sure. Just trying to get some preliminary ideas about what can be done.

Harbie - in this case, it sounds like (can't be certain naturally) - yet sounds like either its Directory has crashed - which is sort of a software problem - or - the drives magnetic surface has developed corrupt portions.

In these cases, it's still necessary to rescue the data first, before the HD can be examined. A back-up of his data is critical. It's not so much of importance as to whether the HD can be repaired or not, but that all his information can be shifted off it and moved somewhere safe (temporarily) - in order to either examine or replace his current HD.

If your friend resides in Sydney, PM me and I can forward my details. If not, there are other free-lance troubleshooters here from various parts of Australia, else he will need to take it into an Apple Repair Centre.

cheers,

ClockWork

Hey Clockwork, again muchas gracias for your information. He resides in Hong Kong, and so will have to try to locate a data recovery service there. At this stage, it's much more an issue of data recovery and transfer to a brand new notebook. I'm also going to suggest he invest in a firewire HD as a backup (on that note, I should probably do this myself, as I'm relying on DVD back-ups every 2 months).

For portable solutions, click Here. My personal choice would be This.

For Desktop solutions, something like This.

cheers,

cw