[Ti] HD acting funny

[H.Peet Foster]

I have to say that i had a very similar experience on a 400mhz tibook 
w. 1gig DRAM.

•  Installed the two security updates and after restart experienced a 
video screen freeze halfway through the startup blue screen and the log 
in screen.
•  On restart never got beyond  a grey screen.
•  After resetting hardware button, achieved a blue screen with an 
endlessly spinning pinwheel (not beach ball).
•  Starting in 'Safe' mode led to kernel crash with unix lines and ten 
language box in center.
•  Could not start in target disk mode.
•  Could not boot from external firewire drive.

So it's off to Tekserve (great guys) and computer hell.

Their diagnosis:
•  1Gig of memory failed (both upper and lower)
•  Faulty Logic board which on 'Shut down' will not let you start back 
up and show any video without resetting hardware reset button.  (On my 
model, it is external on the back of the case).  However, if  you 
choose 'Re-start' in stead of 'Shutdown', no problems.
•  Some inevitable corruption to the hard drive (overlapping blocks, 
etc) that was non-repairable requiring pulling off data and 
re-formatting and restoring data.

This requires a round trip to Apple Depot for the $395 tier one 
servicing.  (Hmm, should I kick in the extra money for tier two 
servicing and get the cracked hinge, screen marks, separating screen 
case, etc addressed, or wait for that mythical G-5 book?)

ANYWAY, after reading all the replies to this post, the best advice 
that anyone should give you is to BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE RIGHT NOW 
WHILE YOU STILL CAN because you certainly have a hardware/software 
issue that will take your hard drive down for the count very soon now, 
(if it has not done so already).

One can speculate that the security updates had something to do with 
this but it is highly unlikely!  This was my first thought also.  
However, you probably have a hardware issue, either memory and/or logic 
board, that is starting to act up.  Inevitably, this will cause 
corruption to the data written to your drive.  The first symptoms will 
be the ones you are describing affecting the operating system, start up 
and overall performance, spinning beachball, etc.  Eventually, when you 
are writing some critical data file, the corruption will occur 
obliterating and overwriting your original file.

Did I say back up while you still can?

I expect to be without my computer until Monday.  (That will be one 
week.  God, withdrawal is hard!)  But, I am up and running, thanks to 
Carbon Copy Cloner, on my wife's Bronze Keyboard G3 Power Book, while 
my TiBook round trips to Apple.  (I swapped her internal drive with my 
external drive back up).

So back up, my friend and take your book down to someone you trust to 
check out your memory and logic board.

Peet

H. Peet Foster-Design
32 Bramble Lane
Riverside, CT 06878
(917)975-3731