[P1] Friend has dead ibook (*yipes*)

[david]

On 1/11/03 4:17 AM, "Joe" <jabeleda at nbn.net> wrote:

> Here's his explanation:
> 
> "I was tinkering with the terminal in bed one day. I let myself get
> distracted and may have hit a few keys before i decided to put my iBook
> on the table. The next morning it won't start up. (I get the Folder/"?"
> Icon blinking at me)
> 
> I managed to start up with a backup Zipdisk and Firewire Drive. My
> Normal HD isn't showing up. At all. not in disk warrior, or norton, or
> First Aid, or even Apple System Profiler. IT doesn't have an ATA drive
> listed.
> 
> Could it have been.. unplugged? Any ideas as to what happened to my my
> dear ibook?"
> 
The first rule of troubleshooting is: don't panic
The second is: keep it simple

The two most important facts in this scenario are: a) the blinking folder
and b) the drive doesn't mount when the computer is booted with another
disk.

This screams disk damage of some kind. It could be that the driver has
become damaged or the drive might be dead. Less likely is that the drive
cable could have come loose or be damaged. I seriously doubt firmware simply
because the computer was bootable from another computer. I'm curious why two
external drives were used and not the iBook's CD.

That he was playing around in the terminal, that some keys might have been
pressed inadvertently are probably not important. Being electronic devices,
computers most often fail when we try to start them up.

david

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davidwb at spymac.com