[Lightstalkers] My powerbook is bananas.

My powerbook is bananas.

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:54:20 +0000

I have been on the road with my 12" powerbook for about 9 months now. It has been performing flawlessly up until 1 week ago when everything started to act crazy.

The machine still functions. Im still able to work, but it is always crashing, and the little spinning wheel is now a constant presence. Photo Mechanic went nuts on me, then started to work again. Safari is now crashing all of the time. It is all seeming to go bad at once. Basic functions are also noticeably slower.

any thoughts mac people?

12" powerbook. 1.5 ghz g4
1.25 GB RAM
Mac OS X 10.4.5

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:43:55 +0000

Check the SMART status of the hard drive with Disk Utility. Mine acted like that when the drive was dying, but it also made really loud screeching noises like a parrot being sat on by a large person. The reporter two doors down the hotel hallway could hear it. Might also be bad ram? Have you tried Disk Warrior?

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:45:56 +0000

If you have all your system disk on you (which if you are traveling, you should) you can always back up everything and do a format/ re-install of the whole system

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:58:14 +0000

hey dan,

i did the disk utility thing and all seems well with that. I do have my system disks with me, and all of my images are backed up.

however,

I do not have things like my photoshop disks with me. If I do a re install, it will not save programs like photoshop, will it?

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:02:16 +0000

im searching for a reliable Mac store here in Colombia in the hopes I can purchase Disk Warrior.

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:00:29 +0000

No, I don't think it will save photoshop for you. Keep it in mind for the future though. I got the idea from an interview I read with a NYT staffer. He talked about how he carries copies of all his program and system disc on him when he's overseas in cases something goes wrong. Tech support probably isn't to great when your computer crashes in Iraq :P

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:38:15 +0000

You can download Disk Warrior:
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior

And if I were you, I'd get an external firewire drive the size of your internal drive and back up via SuperDuper! ASAP, in case your internal is dying.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Backing up via SuperDuper! on a regular basis is a must. After the first back up, the subsequent synch sessions only take a few minutes.

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:50:59 +0000

Michael,

That sounds like the same thing that happened to my PB G4. I kept re-installing the OS and the programs, but it would still go bonkers and eventually crash after a few weeks. Turned out that the hard disk was already damaged (not an unusual occurence since it's a laptop subjected to a lot of movement). In the end, I had to replace the hard disk.

Good luck!

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:47:58 +0000

I use Superduper too and keep a pocket hard drive clone with me when i travel to boot from for just such occurences (must be firewire). When my hard drive crashed it wouldn't even boot after a while, but Disk Warrior miraculously got it to boot a few more times, long enough to troubleshoot the problem. If you're downloading DiskWarrior, you'll need to be able to burn it to CD or it won't work on the HD, as it must be the startup disc. I don't know if you can do that or not with the downloaded version--burn it to a bootable CD.

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 08:07:13 +0000

I do exactly the same as you, Dave: have a pocket drive with a SuperDuper! backup of my internal on it, which I synch with the internal, regularly.
One can use the downloaded DiskWarrior, as long as one writes it to an external drive and uses that, while booted off an OSX CD:
"Repairing your usual startup disk requires that you start up from another disk. In order to use the download copy of DiskWarrior, you will need to start up from another Mac OS X 10.2.1 through 10.4.x disk. You will then need to run a copy of DiskWarrior from a disk that is not the disk you are repairing. (The DiskWarrior download does not include the Apple System files necessary to create a startup CD.)" From: http://www.alsoft.com/beforeyoubuy.html

Re: My powerbook is bananas.

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 09:26:53 +0000

Ah, OK, that sounds like a good way to deal with diskwarrior too. Depsite being such a great utility, it is a real pain in the ass to update the CD versions when they're rendered incompatible with an OS upgrade.