Genius
Did you know that Apple calls the service desk in their store the “Genius Bar”? A little pretentious, don’t you think? My friend Tim said the other day to tell them “Here, genius. A blender fell on this from 6 feet. Fix it. Genius.” As it turns out, even geniuses can’t retroactively fix damage due to gravity. Because it turns on and just hangs at the loading screen, their best diagnosis, without opening the case and charging me my first born, was to put it to their ear and say “It sounds like hard drive.”
Genius.
I don’t know much about hard drives, but I know it doesn’t sound good. It sounds like a soft “whirr.. whirr… click… whirr… whirr… click.”
Now I’m going to get technical, and then sentimental.
Technical. I was able to boot in target disc mode and that makes Jef think that the hard drive isn’t complete toast. My IT dept was able to pull some files off it for me on Monday, and this weekend I’ll have Jef pull the rest. But if it IS my hard drive, like the Genius says, should I be able to boot in target disc mode at ALL? Or is it alive just enough to let me? Steve? Nate? Thoughts? Also, anyone in Austin know of a place I can take the ‘lil book to get the hard drive swapped out? (For the non-technical, iBook hard drives are apparently buried and tricky to replace. Even Jef is wary of attempting it). I’ll provide the drive and pay for labor, but NOT what Apple was going to charge me. They wanted more than I paid for the laptop to begin with and that’s just… immoral. Besides, we’re still not 100% that will even fix it. That’s just step one.
Sentimental. My laptop is my little corner of the world. It hangs out w/ me on the front porch when the dog runs around the yard. Its where I do my photography and my writing, it’s where I keep in touch w/ my family and friends. It’s a toy and a piece of plastic, but it’s also an integral part of how I communicate. Technology is important to me. And I’m heartbroken.
That being said, this house thing couldn’t be happening at a better time. Jef just happens to have a spare laptop. He happens to have two. Sure, he was going to sell one, but in the meantime…
March 3rd, 2006 at 5:25 am
The first thing to do is get all your files off as soon as possible. You seem to already be planning on this though. Although you can boot in target disk mode and access the HD, it doesn’t mean it isn’t damaged. If it is damaged you’ll want to get those files before it totally bites the dust.
So you do hear the statup chime and see the spinning thingy?
If you hold down apple-v (verbose mode) at startup it will show on the display what is being loaded. Does that tell you anything interesting? Errors?
Try startup while holding the option key. This will allow you to select the startup disk. It will scan the comp for mountable volumes and display the options. If it displays your HD, that’s good. If not, well, that’s not.
Are you sure the sound is from the HD and not the CD drive or fan?
Have you tried booting from the install CD that came with the computer? If that works, start up the disk utility program on the CD to see if the HD mounts in the left side of the program screen. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can repair it, but if it doesn’t mount, it means the HD is probably damaged. If it does mount, make sure the HD is selected as the startup volume.
Maybe some RAM chips got shaken loose or damaged. Have you tried reseating them, specifically the one under the keyboard? Maybe the cable on the HD was pulled off a little bit and just needs to be lovingly pushed back on. That happened to me once when a HD went whirr, whirr, click, click.
Did the blender land on top of the closed laptop or on to the keyboard area? Is there visible damage? Opening it up is usually not too difficult if you just want to get a look inside. If you know where the blender hit, look inside under the cover and see if there is any obvious damage to RAM or the logic circuit board or chips near or on the HD. Sometimes it could just be a hairline fracture that, while often impossible to see without a microscope, can mess things up.
Just some off the cuff ideas. I hope it helps or points you in the right direction. I feel your pain. Say howdy to Texas for me.
….shuffles off back to work….
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:23 am
huh huh… words and stuff….
March 7th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Nate - THANK YOU. I was in the process of moving this weekend and didn’t get a chance to respond to this. Jef had some similar theories about something being shaken loose, so we are goign to look at that first and then systematically start going down this list. I can’t tell you how much this helps. I’ll let you know how it all goes.
Tim - While you can’t offer me tech support during this difficult time, please know that you make me laugh and that’s very, very important. :)
December 17th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
[...] Ladies and Gentlemen, I have sad news. After the infamous blender accident of 2006, I’ve known every day with my lil iBook was a gift, and several days ago, that gift stopped giving. [...]