Death in the Family--Sort of...

[gsmittle]

Friday I was finishing up a video on my beloved G4 laptop when it suddenly stopped responding. Unusual for a Macintosh, but what the heck. I force quit out of iMovie, then ended up rebooting the entire computer.

Except it didn't reboot.

At all.

Figuring it was hot, I let it cool for four hours. Same thing, the grey Apple logo was all I got.

I ran through every trick I know: zapping the PRAM, Safe Reboot, Target Disk Mode, booting off a CD, etc. I finally got it to boot off the install disk, which meant I could run some utilities, except the CD didn't see the hard drive. Ever.

Looks like a dead hard drive, so I took Andy Ihnatko's advice: "When all else fails, Convince Yourself You Really Needed A New Computer."

So now I'm sitting here posting on a brand-new MacBook. This weekend was a tax holiday, and with my educator discount, I saved over $300.

I still miss my old PowerBook, though. I guess I'm in mourning. The good news is my last backup is only a week old.

Anyway, when I have time and funds I'll pop in a new HD and have a spare laptop....

This is on top of both cars breaking down the same day (mine's still in the shop), and my going back to school tomorrow. AND no shop time for three days!!!!!

Oh, well, life's rough. Funny how a laptop can become part of the family, no? Her name was Pandora, and her bigger sister is Pandora II.

g.

[leehljp]

Yep, even Macs need a new part once in a great while. I was in Singapore for a month long meeting last fall. About 1/3 of the laptops were Macs and one died on the spot (A fellow from Europe); needed a new hard drive. He had purchased the extended warranty and registered it. He got it fixed in S'pore in two days.

We got the computer to boot on an external drive, see the internal HD a couple of times and successfully save a few key files before it died completely.