It was bound to happen at some point. My old, trusty iBook, bought just prior to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Games, has finally reached a turning point.
Its trackpad and mouse button haven’t worked for some time (save for a brief respite when the ribbon cable mount was soldered back on to the motherboard), and the screen’s backlight has been flaky for almost a year. The original hard drive was replaced earlier this year, which perked up its system response. While not a speed demon – a 500 MHz PowerPC 750 processor is extremely antiquated these days – it did just fine for sprite and me.
But last night, it decided that enough was enough.
In the wee hours, the iBook froze on sprite. Nothing would unfreeze it, and even trying to get a firmware-level shutdown (a.k.a. a BIOS-level shutdown for PC users, done by holding down the power button until the computer turns off) didn’t work. This morning, the iBook awoke with a long test beep – an ominous sign to a person who has worked on Macs for a long time. Upon subsequent attempts at rebooting, the iBook would give a good startup chime, but would show no video. I enetually pulled the battery from the unit to force it to shutdown.
I brought the iBook into the office this morning to try two additional salvage methods:
- hooking up an external monitor; and
- booting into firewire target disk mode
Unfortunately, neither method worked.
So now I’m at a loss. I have to write a final paper for a class (due next Tuesday), and it looks like I’ll need to do all my writing on campus. Ugh.
And then there are the other things that we need from the iBook: pictures, emails, recipes and other things. It really leaves us in a bind. And given that we just shelled out a good sum of cash on car repairs, there’s no funding for a replacement in the immediate future. In general, the holidays are not a good time for big expenses to pop up.
My kingdom for a new Mac!
jank
29 November 2005 — 14:59
If there’s a Comp USA nearby (or other high-geek site), you can get a USB enclosure for a 2.5″ drive for about $25. http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=316123&pfp=BROWSE
Doesn’t get you working from home, but it does let you salvage the data on the drive, assuming you have access to another Mac on campus.
Dan
29 November 2005 — 15:10
Sad mac.
I suppose you had backed up recently?
I know, I know. When my laptop died recently, I hadn’t either. I too know better.
jank
29 November 2005 — 15:23
One other thought – have you looked into the iBook Logic Board repair program? My G3 800 MHz iBook (refurbished, Jan 2003) had similar symptoms.
jank
29 November 2005 — 15:26
Sorry, one more – the iBook Logic Board program is
http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/
Best of luck.
Grand Poobah
29 November 2005 — 15:42
A couple of replies:
– I hadn’t done a good-quality backup in a while. However, I do tend to be redundant with regard to copies of important files, so most things still exist on external media.
– Regarding the iBook Logic Board program: it expired on March 15, 2005. As such, I’m not sure that I’ll qualify, even though my iBook was part of the recall (they only expanded the program to refurbs last December, and my iBook didn’t start showing severe video symptoms until April of this year). I’ll ask our Apple Higher Education rep if there’s any way I can be grandfathered into the program.
But the most annoying part is: we don’t have the money for a new iBook or Powerbook right now, and the apartment isn’t really suited to any other kind of computer, save for possibly an iMac G5 (think “lack of deep flat spaces with available seating”).