Re: G4 laptop MISC questions/Tiger OS
- From: Bob Harris <nospam.News.Bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:57:04 GMT
In article <e-adnZSkDN-SPTPeRVn-pA@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"j" <jok_54@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Daughter lost her drive recently. Computer only 6 months old, but I can
> understand the drive's reliability. It is often the luck of the draw.
> Positive side, she now knows what backup means.
>
> 1) Went through the 'care' service and determined we need to send in the
> computer to the factory. The care tech was not certain the drive was dead,
> or corrupted.
>
> 2) Went to Apple Store and they connected an external hard drive through
> fire-wire. The goal/hope was to try and recover data. I was told that the
> booting up sequence was stalled on the internal hard-drive and that the
> internal hard drive was dead. The laptop never saw the firewire drive.
>
> Q1: Is there a quick way to determine that the drive is dead, versus
> corrupted? It seemed like we tried quite a few things before this conclusion
> was reached on the care line. Best I can tell the critical sign was when the
> little cursor with clock stopped ticking after some time and no disk icon
> appeared in-between the two arrows (one curved) and one straight.
Did they try putting the laptop into "Target Mode". Boot, holding
down the 'T' key. This just fires up the firmware and makes the
internal disk appear to be a Firewire disk to another Mac (Just
went through this for my own iBook G4 - 2 years old).
Then just plug the firewire cable from laptop into already booted
Mac and try to diagnose it that way.
> Q2: What about preventing disk corruption. This time, that was not issue.
> But, what is good program for daughter to run periodically to keep stuff on
> disk cleaner? e.g. On PCs winos some folks use norton (although I hear that
> is not great all the time.) I have heard some folks mention disk warrior.
Diskwarrior is often recommended in the Mac news groups. I
wouldn't know, as I almost never have issues with my disk (except
of course for the hardware failure, and I don't think there is
much any software utility can do about that.
NOTE: I use a PowerMac G5 as my workstation at work, and an iBook
G4 as my home and traveling Mac. I use Macs a lot.
> Q3: I had to sign up for the care, but now I find out that maybe my
> step-daughters step mother may have purchased the care when she got the
> laptop. But, when on line with care hotline, they did not show record of the
> computer being under the 3year care policy.
> Ever hear of hiccups like this?
I self insure. I've been using Macs since '88 and the number of
times I've had to pay for repairs is far less than the money I
would have paid for extended warranties. Others feel more
strongly about getting extended coverage.
> Q4: What is a good book for a hardware/software literate person to learn
> more about the mac Tiger OS? In going through the care hotline and holding
> down special keys, trying this, trying that, there seems to be a lot of
> back-doors to figure out what is going on with the computer. Would be
> interested in learning more.
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Ed (Missing Manual)
by David Pogue
Is always highly recommended.
I would also suggest just going to a good bookstore superstore
(Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc...) and browse the Mac section
(there are always a few current Tiger related Mac books on hand
even when the bookstores shortchange the computer section. Get a
beverage in the cafe, and browse until you find an author that
talks your language.
> Q5: Any general advice on G4 laptop, Tiger OS, in terms of keeping computer
> running smoothe would be appreciated. I need to send computer back to
> factory. They are sending a box. I can't complain about the support staff.
> They seem to be competent and the wait time was under 2 minutes. Not sure
> you would find this with a PC.
For the most part Mac OS X just plain works. If you dig inside
its guts because you want to, then you can always mess things up,
but that is half the fun :-)
Personally, from the descriptions you have given, it sounds like a
hardware problem, and that is not something Mac OS X can prevent.
As for backup, There are lots of options. I have 2 that I have
fallen into (not suggesting they are the best, just what I use).
SuperDuper! to clone the internal disk to an external disk
connected via Firewire or USB 2.0
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
And Retrospect which can backup (both full and incremental) to
just about anything, disks, container files on disks, CDs, DVDs,
tapes, locally attached, over the network, etc...
http://www.dantz.com/
SuperDuper! is a great price. Retrospect costs a lot more.
As for backup media, I buy big inexpensive EIDE disks
(http://dealmac.com or if you are a PC dude http://dealnews.com),
put them into inexpensive Firewire or USB enclosures, then use
them as backup devices.
So when are you getting your own Mac? Because, you can not just
read about it, and your daughter is not going to want you messing
with her Mac. You need one of your own :-)
Bob Harris
> Thanks for your time.
> Merry Christmas.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> J
.
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