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PBG4 HDD taken out by magnet...

charmin

charmin

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 25, 2005
94
0
W. London
Arse.

Yesterday I waved my DTT aerial over my hard drive. The aerial has a magnet in the base, and apparently that magnet was strong enough to destroy my drive. (It won't boot. It won't even let me boot from a CD or external drive, presumably because the Mac thinks the drive is working, tries to read it, and it all hangs)

Question is, is there any way of fixing this, or am I just going to need to stump up for a new drive? My optical drive has been shot for a while, so I might try and pick up a second-hand replacement for the whole PB.

Is there any chance that slapping in a new HDD isn't going to fix the problem? Given that the magnet was directly on top of the drive (left handrest), I can't imagine that the problem is actually a magnetised motherboard or something like that...
 
Holding down the "option" on startup should allow you to select all bootable volumes it finds (CD or external drive).

If you haven't already tried it, that is.

I can't think of any component, other than the HD, that could be affected by a magnet in such a way as to keep the PB from detecting other bootable volumes. Even if it affected the CD/DVD drive motors (doubt it would be strong enough), it still wouldn't bother the USB/Firewire ports.

There might be another aspect to this: I'm not sure what a DTT ariel is, other than it has a magnetic mount. Is it for transmitting? And if so, what band/mode?

edit: I'm assuming your reason for booting off CD or External Drive is to run Disk Utility (or some such tool) to verify/repair your PB's internal HD. Otherwise, please take as a troubleshooting suggestion. :)
 
Holding down Option reveals my bootable volumes, but then the cursor freezes to the point where I can't even move it. The weird part is that the drive shows up in that list, I just wish I knew what was causing the freeze at that point.

Holding down C takes me to the grey Apple and the ticker, but that just ticks forever.

The aerial came with my EyeTV - it's just a very small aerial for picking up digital TV, and shouldn't be interfering with the operation of my Macs other than the magnet.
 
The cursor acts very strangly when it's in the "option" boot mode. I find one has to just keep prodding it along and it will eventually get to the button you want. The other thing is, you won't be able to move it at all until it's completely done with the volume search. It's slow.

If the "c" startup actually started on the CD, it will be very slow and spin for a long time. If you can hear the CD drive's head seeking, it should boot eventually. If it's a home brew CD boot disk, it could take MUCH longer than an Apple Install/Restore disk or Techtool or other commercial.

Thanks for filling in the blanks on the antenna. My concern was RF radiation interfering with ??? or, if a high enough energy, causing damage. A receive antenna is not an issue, other than the mount (...unless something emitted from a built-in amplifier). In that case, just moving the antenna should have fixed the problem, as it wouldn't be powerful enough to damage anything.

Sorry for typos I might be missing. It's 3AM here and my fimbers are fimbling and eyes fuzzing. Hope you get some repair attempt made (Disk Utility or whatever) and it works out. I'll check back in morning (MUCH later in morning) and see how it went.
 
Well my main problem is getting as far as Disk Utility...

If the option-boot and boot from disc are both hanging, I'll have no choice but to replace the hardware. If I can get as far as wiping the disc I'll be happy, I have a backup from a few days ago. (I got neurotic with backups after losing the drive in my iMac a few times recently)

From memory, I can normally move the cursor while it's still looking for volumes, I just can't click on anything for a while. Similarly, I've booted from CD countless times, and this is definitely an unusually long wait if it's not just outright hanging.

I'll try both of them again when I get back from work. I'll probably give each method a couple of hours - if that's not enough, it seems that the hard drive might be gone for ever.

(I remember from physics lessons that heat can destroy/weaken a magnetic field - anybody got a blowtorch? ;) )
 
I had the same problem i bought thease Super magnet and put it close to my PB G4. I Had to send it into apple but they fixed it (lost all my files thou).
 
If you really cannot boot by the normal means you can try booting in to target disk mode (hold T) whilst connected to another mac. You can then run the install process from that machine. It should even allow for an archive and install if there is any viable data. Hope that is of some help to you.
 
Afraid not.

I tried Target Disk when it happened, but it sent me to the same screen as trying to start from CD, again something I thought was very odd. I'll have to give it another go later.
 
Take the HD out, attach it to a IDE cable which will let it fit into a desktop machine then get that machine to try and read it, it might hang but it shouldn't crash since it isn't the main drive.
 
Does a 2.5" drive have the same connector as a standard IDE drive? I didn't look at it closely.

Regardless, I don't have a tower PC - I have a PB and an iMac, and I'm not taking apart an iMac for the sake of a £50 drive.

I could potentially do it at work, but I'd still need to know about the cabling.
 
charmin said:
Does a 2.5" drive have the same connector as a standard IDE drive? I didn't look at it closely.

Regardless, I don't have a tower PC - I have a PB and an iMac, and I'm not taking apart an iMac for the sake of a £50 drive.

I could potentially do it at work, but I'd still need to know about the cabling.
Click to expand...

You would have to get a size converter, the pinout is the same, but since the drive is physically smaller the 3.5" cable won't fit. You could also splurge for a 2.5" external usb/firewire drive. Then swap drives.
 
When it gets to the point that I need to spend money just diagnosing the drive, I wonder if it wouldn't be quicker and cheaper to just front the money for a new one.

I had been planning a HD upgrade, mainly holding off because of the battery life concerns. I might also use the opportunity to buy a completely new replacement for the machine - the combo drive doesn't read discs properly, the video out is broken, the bluetooth is fried...

Stuff like that is going to depend on how much a working 867 costs in the UK these days.
 
Gah. Target disc mode still takes me to a ticker, and option booting is definitely freezing, I've given it hours.

Time to do some eBaying :(
 
You're too late :p

I already bought a replacement. I can't afford for the machine to be out-of-action for too long, so it was straight over to eBuyer and next-day delivery.

Got an 80GB 7200RPM Seagate somethingorother 9.5mm drive for £50 inc. the delivery after the £10 Google Checkout discount, which is an upgrade in both size and speed.

(Original drive was 4x00, replaced it with a 5400)
 
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