Need help with Powerbook G4

[dougal]

Ok, sorry im posting here but i dont know where to ask and i love these forums, so i really hope someone can help me.

It all started yesterday. All of a sudden my Powerbook became very slow with the spinnin beachball etc..

I switched it off (Not shut down)

This morning when i switched it on it took ages (about 2 or 3 mins) to boot up.

Once booted up it was super slow and i noticed it indexing.

Switched it off again after it had been indexing for ages. Started up and same thing.

Shut down. Started up again and same.

Now it won't even boot up. I switch it on, i get the Apple logo and the loading gear thingy then after less then a minute it just switches off.

It won't even start up, just grey screen with Apple logo, about a minute or less and it just switches off.

The spec is as follows:

Powerbook G4 15", 2GB DDR ram , 1.67Ghz CPU, 80Gig HD, Superdrive and running OS X 10.5.8 Leopard.

[dougal]

When i booted up with the CD and did Repair disk it said it couldn't fix it.

I took a chance erasing the hard drive and re-installing OS X.

It seems to be working perfectly now. After all the updates i have gone into disk utility again and did Verify disk and it says its good.

Also S.M.A.R.T status says Verified.

Possible the files messed up? Anyway i'm happy its working again as its my workhorse and i depend on it.

Thanks guys

[dougal]

Thanks guys but the problem is solved it seems.

I re-installed OS X (erased the hard drive first)

Now its stable and working properly and fast. The disk verification is not reporting any problems anymore and S.M.A.R.T status is VERIFIED which i guess is a good thing.

Probably the file structure or something was messed up. But now i kind of regret putting my spare 120GB laptop hard drive into my iBook clamshell which i dont even use whilst my Powerbook has an 80GB.. LOL

[dougal]

Well at the mo i don't have anything so important as i keep all the important stuff on my imac. But yeah i  suppose i should start preparing that the HD might fail.

To be honest i'll probably buy a Macbook or MBP as soon as i have the money and i'll either sell the Powerbook or else give it to the wife.

I had the same problems on a Pismo Powerbook. Managed to sort it by reformatting and installing.
All reported ok and all seemed fine for a while. Then read/write errors, long boot times, system slowing down etc.
Replaced the HDD and been ok ever since.

Over the years ive had several HDD's fail and they all seem to go like this.

So what im saying is - make sure you have some form of backup routine in place, because  one day it will fail completely.

Backups are easy if you are using OS X Leopard. Its called Time Machine and its built in to the OS. You probably know all this, but just incase.

Good Luck with that drive!