# PowerBook won't boot properly (I'm going nuts here!)



## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

Hi Everyone, I have a 12" PowerBook G4 that I purchased on eBay. It was described as "working wonderfully." When I turned it on, it booted into Tiger just fine. I popped in some CD's to begin installing my software, but I was greeted with messages like "You Have Inserted A Disk Containing No Volumes That Mac OS X Can Read." If I tilted the PowerBook 30º left so that the right side of the keyboard was in the air, it would read some of the discs.

That was irritiating enough, but now this morning the computer won't even boot! I've checked the verbose log and sometimes it gets all the way to the "Welcome to Macintosh" line of text, but then the line "IOATAController Device Blocking Bus" randomly appears. This happens when I try to boot off either the hard drive or the SuperDrive. When it doesn't boot verbosely, the gray screen with the spinning power cycle is displayed continously.

If I boot into FireWire disk target mode, the Software Restore CD shows up on the desktop of my other Mac, but not the hard drive.

What do you guys think? Bad HD? Bad SuperDrive? That would really suck if it were both! Oh, random fact I tried zapping the PRAM too.

Thanks in advance


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

Interestingly enough, during one of these long attempted boots, I was able to get Mac OS X to load. How did i do it? I picked up the powerbook, held it over my head, and swung it down towards my feet (I never let go of it mind you). The hard drive stalled and made a click noise, and the boot proceeded. 7 swings later, I was able to start pulling some data off the HD and onto my external firewire drive. Wow.


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## happyrck (Feb 17, 2006)

just out of curiosity...why did you hang on...


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

bc this thing was just far too overpriced to just smash (I have thrown several of my dell latitude c600's).


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## happyrck (Feb 17, 2006)

I understand


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## MacAdict (Apr 14, 2006)

Is this a joke? I mean, did you actually try swinging your Mac around in order to get it to boot?!?!?


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

Not only did I try, but I succeeded! I've heard of people putting their OEM 12" book drives in the FREEZER to get them to work well enough to salvage data. Apparently a common problem. UPS is paying for a nice 100GB hitachi travelstar to replace it (though I'm not too keen on opening this thing).


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## happyrck (Feb 17, 2006)

You cant argue with success


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

AlexTs said:


> Interestingly enough, during one of these long attempted boots, I was able to get Mac OS X to load. How did i do it? I picked up the powerbook, held it over my head, and swung it down towards my feet (I never let go of it mind you). The hard drive stalled and made a click noise, and the boot proceeded. 7 swings later, I was able to start pulling some data off the HD and onto my external firewire drive. Wow.


This would make a wonderful MAC vs PC commercial.


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

Yes, let's use a faulty third-party platform-independent piece of hardware to decide which OS is superior!


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## mstokes (Mar 12, 2005)

When you get it to boot have you tried the Disk Utility to verify the drive? Have you tried a third party disk utility to determine hardware issues? Have you tried an apple cd to determine if there are hardware issues? Really sounds like a flaky motherboard to me.


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

Ok folks, here's an update: I hassled through the damage claims process with UPS. They APPROVED my claim, but said they could only send the money to the "shipper" (in this case that person is the eBay seller). The seller refused to send me the money from UPS! So now I have PayPal involved, and have to get the laptop reappraised blah blah blah... *sigh* If you're going to buy a computer used, MAKE SURE IT'S UNDER WARRANTY.


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## klam (Apr 21, 2006)

Would you mind telling us who the seller is? I wouldn't want to buy anything from them. :down:


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## AlexTs (Mar 2, 2006)

eBay seller's user ID is "youarebright." His score is 12.


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## tedwinder (Sep 7, 2005)

12!!!??? wow, thats low!

A good old swing or bang usually gets things working!


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