stuff falls apart II
Oct. 2nd, 2008 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that partway through the morning, the computer I generally use, the Powerbook, had a message that it needed to be rebooted. That's a new one. I rebooted it, but it wouldn't go beyond a gray screen. I zapped the PRAM, and that got it up to a static gray apple screen. A search through boxes turned up the system disks, so I booted from an install disk and used Disk Tools to verify permissions, repair permissions, verify the hard drive, and repair the hard drive. After that, it let me boot. Oh yeah, the hard drive made noises like it had sand in it, or like a cocktail shaker with some rocks inside. Anyway, not nice noises. They settled down, and I got my 8GB thumb drive out and backed everything I could think of onto it.
Once in a while, I heard the noises again. At the end of the day it was becoming quite voluble, so I shut it down. This morning, it gives me the static gray screen.
I'm wondering. If I get one of those portable hard drives and manage to get everything onto that, could I run the computer from it and leave the internal drive out of things altogether? I kind of suspect this would cost less than fixing the thing just now. That's if and if, of course.
Now I wait for the phone repair to come within 24 hours of my call.
.
Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that partway through the morning, the computer I generally use, the Powerbook, had a message that it needed to be rebooted. That's a new one. I rebooted it, but it wouldn't go beyond a gray screen. I zapped the PRAM, and that got it up to a static gray apple screen. A search through boxes turned up the system disks, so I booted from an install disk and used Disk Tools to verify permissions, repair permissions, verify the hard drive, and repair the hard drive. After that, it let me boot. Oh yeah, the hard drive made noises like it had sand in it, or like a cocktail shaker with some rocks inside. Anyway, not nice noises. They settled down, and I got my 8GB thumb drive out and backed everything I could think of onto it.
Once in a while, I heard the noises again. At the end of the day it was becoming quite voluble, so I shut it down. This morning, it gives me the static gray screen.
I'm wondering. If I get one of those portable hard drives and manage to get everything onto that, could I run the computer from it and leave the internal drive out of things altogether? I kind of suspect this would cost less than fixing the thing just now. That's if and if, of course.
Now I wait for the phone repair to come within 24 hours of my call.
.
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Re: Hard drives
Date: 2008-10-02 02:25 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, Kip, I think you've missed a recent really good eBay sale by one seller of used but probably working 80 GB laptop disks. They were going cheap because they'd been returned by their original buyers as non-functional, but that can happen when you try to upgrade a Wintel laptop with a Mac disk.
Right now, 80 GB disks start at about $10 on Ebay auctions, typically sell for $50 and up with immediate purchase. Most Powerbook models only support disk capacity up to 120 GB, so there's no point to going for a really large disk (unless it's dirt cheap, in which case the disk would work but a bunch of it would be inaccessible).
All disk speeds (3800, 4200, 5400 RPM, I think) will work, though faster is better at the same price.
Remember that you cannot use a SATA disk: look for keywords PATA, ATA, IDE, EIDE.
Good luck, Mr Phelps.
Btw, I think I'll be in your neck of the woods late next week, will look you up if possible and would be available to assist with disk upgrade. If you need a Torx set or anything, let me know.
Re: Hard drives
Date: 2008-10-02 03:45 pm (UTC)Re: Hard drives
Date: 2008-10-04 03:44 pm (UTC)