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July 05, 2004
the computers, they hate me
first, my ibook died.
then the cd-rom drive on the cube died, leaving it stuck at a many years old operating system.
now the powerbook is dead. i believe it's under warranty, but apple is closed today. also, i never did back it all up to that big firewire drive i bought. just didn't think about it after i got home, i was all preoccupied with other stuff.
the geeky details can be found under "MORE".
starting last night, the powerbook has a kernel panic upon startup. it had been having a flashing question mark upon startup for a few weeks but seemed to be fine otherwise. i still see the flashing question mark before the kernel panic.
it will boot into safe mode just fine.
i tried to boot it off of the restore dvd so i could run disk utility, and it has a kernel panic while trying to boot off of that.
now, with the dvd in there, it also will not boot into safe mode. no kernel panic, it just hangs.
once i regain my patience, i'll try booting into that crazy line mode if i can remember what it's called, and try to eject the cd that way.
i can't use the firewire drive with the cube, because it requires a driver which must be installed via the cd-rom drive. i think.. hm, i should check the maxtor web site.... i'd really love it if i could back up the hard drive of the powerbook, even if it is under warranty.
Posted by lisa at July 05, 2004 02:01 PM | TrackBack
Comments
waah! that sucks :(
Posted by: Sarah on July 5, 2004 05:33 PM
it's clicking along ok in safe mode right now; safe mode turns off airport, but the ethernet works and so does everything else i've wanted to use so far.
given this i am guessing it's a software problem-- though that doesn't explain why it kernel panics while trying to boot off the restore dvd. and the flashing question mark remains disturbing as well.
i should try backing out the driver for the external firewire drive. i tried upgrading that driver and it didn't help.
Posted by: lisa on July 6, 2004 09:51 AM
Can you get the powerbook to mount as a firewire drive on another computer? That would allow you to get all the files off if the file system isn't corrupted.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
Phew - all this looks painful:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
Posted by: Mr Pinky on July 8, 2004 12:59 AM
yeah, i went through all that bidness. it will boot in safe mode, and go on the network, so i was able to back up to the cube that way. firewire target disk mode would probably work as well.
it boots, so i am hoping it's just software incompatibilities and not a degrading hard drive.
didn't have time to call apple care tonight. maybe tomorrow night.
Posted by: spacegrrl on July 8, 2004 01:05 AM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.