[P1] Friend needs iBook help!

[Zachary Heaton]

On Wednesday, Jan 29, 2003, at 18:26 Canada/Eastern, Joe wrote:

> this is his problem:
>
> "My Tangerine iBook just went dead. Oh, and I mean dead.
>
> Unfortunately, there's a file on it I must must must get to today, 
> tomorrow at the latest.
>
> Symptoms: wouldn't start - could hear the drive spinning, but it 
> wouldn't boot.
>
> Went to Apple knowledge base, tried procedures in doc 58385. Nada. 
> Went on to doc 14449. Now the darn thing doesn't even spin up the 
> drive - it's a brick.
>
> Any ideas? Or am I toast?"
>
>
>
> I think he's toast...but i'm sure someone out there could  help him!
>
> TIA

The hard drive failing to spin up does not strike me as a good sign.  
However, the good news is that it appears to have been caused by the 
attempted Power Manager reset (doc 14449), and was not connected to the 
original problem.  Did he make sure to follow all of the steps - 
including removing the power adapter and battery, and then waiting 
before reinstalling them?  It might be worth trying to reset the 
computer again.

Barring that, if the drive was spinning up, it seems very strange that 
*nothing* would have happened - not even a flashing question mark.  A 
dead display/backlight is one possibility - can he make out anything on 
the screen at all?  Does he have an external monitor he can plug the 
machine into?

Also, he might want to try booting from a CD to see if it is the hard 
drive or the connection to it that is the problem.  He may want to play 
power-source voodoo as well - will the machine boot from battery?  If 
not, will it boot from the power adapter?

Keep notes to see what works, what doesn't, and what causes "odd" 
results - you can probably track down the source of the problem through 
a little trial and error.  Also do the standard check for recent 
changes - any new software?  Any new hardware?  Was the iBook 
dropped/bumped/had something spilled on it recently?

Regards,
Zach Heaton