Question : Problem: Dead Powerbook G4

I bought a used 1.5Ghz G4 15" PowerBook (A1095) from Craigslist last night. The guy was selling it b/c the computer was acting up and when he brought it to the Apple Store, they told him the HD was failing and would need to be replaced. He decided to buy a new MacBook instead and sell this one.

When I met the guy for the transaction, the laptop was powered on but clearly there was something wrong with the HD b/c it was super-slow and the beach-ball timer kept popping up.

So I brought it home and booted it up using my Tiger DVD so that I could run Disk Utility, which reported errors on the HD. So I ran Repair Disk and it failed saying there was some sort of problem (something about a problem Inode, maybe? I didn't write down the error message).

So I rebooted it again from my Tiger Install DVD in order to reformat the HD and do a clean install of the OS. Formatting & reinstall seemed to go just fine. Rebooted normally, set up a user account and connected to my Wifi to download the OS updates, which went fine. In the meantime, I popped in a movie DVD b/c I wanted to see how the screen was for watching movies. Then I rebooted again after updates were done. Was able to log back in and get to the main desktop.

But then the computer started making some really awful grinding sounds. I don't think it was the Superdrive b/c it had no DVD inside it at this point. But something somewhere definitely sounded like it was loose and rattling around inside. It sounded way too loud to be coming from the HD. I was thinking that it might be the fan assembly, but not sure. I picked it up to hold it closer to my ear and as I tilted the computer forward the power just went out on it completely.

I pushed the power button to reboot, but got absolutely nothing. No lights, no beeps, no sound. It seems completely dead now. I thought perhaps the cooling fan had failed and the computer had overheated. But I tried powering on again this morning and nothing.

Any suggestions?

Answer : Problem: Dead Powerbook G4

As strung stated, it does sound like the hard drive is bad. A bad hard drive cane work for small periods of time, but once it heats up after a few minutes to a hour or so it may then fail. I would replace the hard drive.

I am not sure if your computer has a PATA (sometimes called ATA-6) drive or a SATA drive. Once you find that out you can purchase a replacement drive here:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Drives

Just use the left hand side under interface to pick the PATA or SATA drive then you can select which drive you want.

The following guide will help you replace the drive:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/powerbook_g4/PB_G4_HD_upgrade/pb_g4_hd_upgrade.html

I hope this helps. Good luck.