[P1] tick-tock hard drive

[Dan Farley]

Sounds like your out of luck.
While I've had success 'whacking' a drive that failed to spin-up - I doubt
it will work for you since it sounds like yours is spinning. The rubber
mounting in the iBook is fairly substantial too making it even more
difficult. Apple does have a data transfer service - but it costs a little
extra. I think I'd ask. The disk rescue companies were rather expensive when
I looked into it a few years back. More than the cost of the hard drive -
but hey - give them a call. For data back up - I bought a cheap firewire
enclosure and a large inexpensive and slow hard drive that I put in it. Cost
about $100 for 80MB. It stays home and once every few months (generally
after reading a story like yours on the forum)  I'll hook it up to back up
my stuff. Disk Cloner does a great job. The whole thing costs less than a
commercial back-up program.

Call Apple
Dan

> 
> Anyone seen (or heard) of this type of drive failure? How about any
> experience with DriveSavers or like companies to get the data off the
> drive. If I send it back to Apple (I have AppleCare), can I get them to
> fix it and send be back the fubar drive? Or do they always need to keep
> the old drive? Right now it's clicking away with a heating pad (on
> medium) wrapped around the front left corner. Or should I try an ice
> pack? How about gently slapping it around? I imagine I can kiss the
> data goodbye. Just college stuff and maybe 10G of mp3s. So it's not
> life and death, but it would be nice if some heroics might work.