This powerbook g4 laptop was brought in by the client because there was a question mark symbol flashing on the desktop after computer was turned on. It is normal occurrence on a macbook laptops especially when there is a problem with a hard drive inside the laptop. flashing question mark indicates computer doesn’t know what or where to boot from. but many times when laptop hard drive crashes, one must still diagnose it for sure. however in our case we did not have to do hard drive diagnosis, because this powerbook g4 hard drive was making a very specific clicking noise. the kind of clicking sound which is very familiar to anyone who has dealt with computers for a longer time and had some failing hard drives.
so this repair was quite simple on first hand and had to be completed overnight in the perfect world. However we don’t live in one, so upon taking it apart, we realized that this powerbook G4 was still using the old IDE type of connection. And if you were to look for one with any major retailers who sell hard drives, like best buy, frys electronics, staples, etc, you will find out they don’t carry these anymore, because everyone has shifted to a SATA interface hard drives nowadays. So we had to order one online and it took few days to get it.
Another word of caution if you try to change a hard drive on a powerbook g4 yourself. Be prepared to find your original powerbook g4 operating system disks mac os 10.4 (tiger). because it is very sensitive to disks that were burned and will not take all of them. Once you have the disk you insert it into a dvd drive, restart the computer and after you hear the chime you hold down the “c” key on the keyboard and that will order powerbook g4 to boot from the disc. then just follow directions and your operating system will be installed almost automatically.
so here you are: overnight pc repair fixes not only pcs but also mac computers from apple. call us at 877-938-8777 with your computer problem and we will most likely help you fix it or point you in the right direction if we can not help you ourselves!
