Harddisk about to die??? Advise needed

[crassusad44]

Hi

The last month I've had a strange problem with my PowerBook. I think it may be my harddrive that's about to die, but I'm not sure if it could be something else. The problem occurs when my computer hangs (spinning beachball) and I force my machine off. When I try to boot the machine again, I get the icon of the folder with a blinking questionmark, indicating that it can not find the harddrive. When I try to start up from a system CD, or even Diskwarrior, the harddrive can not be found, not even as an unmounted drive. The first two times this problem occured it was solved by taking out the battery for a good hour, but the last time it happened, my Mac was down for almost two days before it suddenly worked again.
One a strange note, when the computer finds the harddrive again, it starts to boot, but spins forever while the Apple logo is still showing. When I force the machine off, and then fire it up again, it boots just fine...

I have a PowerBook G4 12" 867 combo, with 640 MB RAM, a (faulty?) Samsung SpinPoint M40 and Mac OS X 10.4.3. Apple Hardware Test indicates no errors (except for no harddrive to test). Is my harddrive dying, or is it my PowerBook that is making fun of me?

 

[superbovine]

hmm well you hard drive could be dead. the first thing you should do is make a backup then again you should have already had a backup....

in theory a bad cable or bad motherboard could cause the problem. perhaps, a over heating problem which would explain it working after long periods of time off then suddenly working, but a hd that is about to die does that same thing.

 

[tpjunkie]

Have you tried reinstalling the OS? Generally when your harddrive fails, you dont get much of a warning, at least not performance-wise. Has it began making any unsual noises?