I think my internal HDD has died today. Noticed a gradual slowing over the last week, then Safari froze today with repetitive clicking from the drive. Now will not reboot - just get the Apple logo on the screen after the chime

Luckily (phew) I had backed up only 2 hours prior so have been able to boot from the external FW HDD. Have tried Disk Utility repair - finds the drive and says it is OK???

Does this mean it is a physical problem with the drive? Is there any point in restoring the internal drive from the external drive?

If I am to replace the drive, is this a DIY job? Laptop is a 15" G4 Aluminium PB - current drive a Hitachi 80Gig.

Any thoughts gratefully accepted since I am not very techy!

As you've found, Disk Utility can be very unreliable and returns "false positives" from time to time. You could buy a utility such as Disk Warrior to confirm this, but based on what you've been saying, the HD is kaput.

Installing a new hard disk is fairly easy if you have a couple of spare hours and a clean desk to work on; the link below details how to go about doing this on your 15" PB.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/

JB

Thanks for the advice JB. The drive was the original and lasted almost 3 years with trips all over the world and a couple of gravity assisted impacts, so not too bad.

There seem to be a few options in terms of replacement drives - any thoughts on size, speed, brand, etc

Thanks...

The current sweet spot in price seems to be 80GB drives (still!) - they're around ~ $100 while 100 or 120GB drives are $60 - 80 more. Still, it's still not much so I'd go a 120GB Fujitsu or Seagate drive if you can for ~ $170. I'm a bit of a fan of Fujitsu drives, as they're quiet and don't get too warm, although a 80GB Samsung drive I picked up recently does a great job too. Make sure you're getting at least a 5400RPM and 8MB cache drive in whatever brand you get.

Oh yeah, I'm getting my prices from MSY's price list:

http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/msy.htm

Cheers,

JB

Thanks for the advice.

Will check MSY for the drive. Any ideas on whether they can supply the T6 Torx Screwdriver and Spudger mentioned in the ifixit guide? Have a set of micro screwdrivers but no hex keys small enough to get those hex nuts out of the top case.

Cheers,

Matt

For the Torx screwdriver, hit up your local hardware store, they'll surely have a kit. Electronics stores as well.

Fujitu are you insane.

Go for Seagate or Western Digital.

Good ideal though to use MSY as a current price guide it's usually pretty indicative of the market.

Umm no, they make very decent 2.5" hard disks (not that I've seen 3.5" models!). Near-silent, don't get overly hot, and perform well. Seagates get hot, and I've noted before that every WD drive I've come across over the years has died in some way or another. So far, of the 5+ 2.5" Fujitsu drives I've purchased I've had no issues. You'll find most PC stores selling notebook spare parts will happily have just as many 2.5" Fujitsu drives as Seagate stacked on their shelves. Same goes with MSY.

Jaycar sell a good mini-torx set drcrox if you can't find much else. Not that cheap though, but they come in handy for other jobs eg. pulling apart a mobile phone.

JB

I second that though personally I prefer WD over Seagate but not by much. I have something like 10 WD's and 2 Seagates on my LAN currently. Some of them have ran for 3 years 24 / 7 and I've never had a single hard drive issue to date over the last (almost) 4 years since I arrived in the States. I have several Hitachi drives as well too, mostly drive modules for my Xserves. They've been fine as well.

Dave

From memory were not the dreaded clicking IBM HDD marketed under the Hitachi brand?

Have used both Seagate and Western Digital and have found both fast, quiet and ultra reliable.

Hitachi? IBM? What do they have to do with it - you can ask us... The matter is that on January 6, 2003 the hard drive industry gave birth to a new company Hitachi Global Storage Technologies which combines the subdivisions of IBM and Hitachi dealing with HDD production.

From here: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...gxp/index.html

None of my Hitachi drives click in the least. I have a 400 GB Hitachi in my G4 DP 2.7 as well as the several Hitachi drive modules.

It had dual IBM 180 GB drives with 8 mb caches in my old MDD DP 1.25 which I sold a couple of years back. They were very quiet as well. I would have known back then too. it was before I got a couple of Xserves and could still hear. =)

Dave

Me too. Dunno why I wrote them in the other order.

Now that I think of it, I also used to rate quantum (specifically fireball) but haven't had dealings of late. My most recent was stock (apple badged) in this machine, 20GB, never had a prob. but not using it now. Having said that, it was unused for ages but is now in my Mum's PC as the 'doze boot disk (see this thread) and hain't had a problem yet.

WOO HOO, success!!

Thanks to all of you for your advice. I now have a brand-spanking new Seagate 120GB HD installed in the Powerbook.

Due to time constraints had to buy the HDD from CPL in West Melbourne - $179, set of torx screwdrivers from Jaycar - $11, online guide from ifixit.com - free, advice to get the ball rolling - priceless

The new drive is quiet, 40GB bigger than the old Hitachi drive and faster. What more could I ask for?

Best bit of advice though was to buy a FW external HDD, a copy of Superduper, and to back up often. Result - absolutely NO data loss.

Matt