SURVEY: Has your Powerbook Hard Drive Failed?
 

Hey all, I'm brand new here and am a fairly new Mac user (got my powerbook last August).

I recently had my entire Hard Drive fail. The disk utility said something to the effect of 'There has been a fatal error on this drive. Back up all data now.' Well, to my dismay, my hard drive could not be saved sans a few pictures and documents (courtesy of my friend Bill Berry).

Anyway, the reason for this post is that besides my great disappointment and disatisfaction with Apple, I wanted to know how many people out there had this happen to their PowerBook (or their other mac systems). I plan to file a complaint to the Attorney General regarding this issue so that there will be a formal investigation because I feel that this is happening to a lot of other people - I don't think we're just supposed to sit back and get screwed out of more money and time.

So if you can please respond with your story - computer type, when it happened, the result, and your experience with apple (and your name if you like) - I will keep record of it and try to get something done about this.

As a college student who doesn't have enough money to make a difference to them, I'm using my voice. I have had no other problems with them in the past, and I still think that they are the best out there...that's why what has happened to me bothers me most of all.

I hope to hear back from some of you...http://forums.macosxhints.com/images...s/confused.gif

You always should back up. This is the number one rule in safe personal computing, i would think. Hard drive failure is endemic to any platform or company.

For the record, no, my PB drive has never failed. I have had my PB for 2 years and 2 months.

Welcome to the forums!

Seriously, why? Components fail, it's a fact of mass produced technology, and why it comes with a 1 year warranty. Backups of critical data are fairly easy to make, the price of blank CDs, DVDs, and even hard drives have plummeted in recent years, making the cost of backing up more related to the time of actually doing it than buying the media. As far as down time goes, you're a student; if you really HAVE to get something done, any semi-reuptable school has labs available for use.

edit: I just noticed in your first post that your machine is over a year old. I stand behind what I said, and would like to add that there is a 3 year service plan available for PowerBooks, though if you didn't get it, the repair would have cost you money. It sucks, but it does happen.

For the record, my wife's iBook is almost a year old, my powerbook is 3, my other powerbook is 3, and I have a portable drive enclosure that is now 2 years old, all of the drives are still going strong. I had one portable drive die in 2 months, but I dropped that one on a parking lot, so I can't really fault the drive.

I'm not trying to attack you directly, so don't take this post the wrong way. I'm just tired of people expecting 100% of their computer components to work 100% of the time for 100% of people forever.

I've had my PowerBook for about a year and a half, maybe a year and 9 months and my hard drive recently failed. I too was disappointed, but it's not Apple's fault... not directly anyway. Apple didn't make the drive, some other company did. While upset, the thing that really got to me was that Apple's repair depot took out my 1GB DIMM while repairing my PowerBook and didn't put it back in. After calling they sent me a new 1GB DIMM about 1 week after I had my PowerBook back, but it never should have happened. Anyway, I bought a 200GB external drive for under $200 and make regular backups to it now. I also burn occasional DVDs of my irreplaceable files (photos, videos, and work files mostly).

I've seen many powerbook drives crash, which is what all drives eventually do.

Yet I feel Apple's marketing powerbooks as desktop replacements is to blame, at least in part.

I've had a PowerBook hard drive fail. But you see, it isn't an Apple drive. It was made by IBM, before they sold their hard disk business to Hitachi. Apple doesn't make drives. Also, drives fail, and laptop drives fail more because they are carried and impacted so much more often than a drive in a desktop case that never ever moves. You have to expect that it won't last as long. Even with that, the drive that replaced the failed one is still going strong daily, and the drive in my PowerBook now is still getting the job done 2 years later.

Every company sells desktop replacement laptops, so I wont blame Apple for that. My friends who have ThinkPads plug them into desktop monitors and docks, and yes, they have occasional hardware problems too. I think Apple can market these as desktop replacements because I haven't felt the need to buy another desktop since I got this Powerbook 2 years ago. But whenever you buy a laptop you are buying a machine that runs hotter and with less ventilation than a desktop. Things might happen.

And the same drive found in laptops is now used in a desktop...the Mac mini.

=> Coat Room

As it has already been pointed out, the question is not whether, but when a drive will fail.

Going from there, everybody is free to do the amount of backup necessary rather than whining that the foreseeable just happened.

my PB HD has never failed (or had problems) in 2 years... I back up every week... you should have done the same. If its mechanical... its gonna fail sooner or later!

good luck with the Attorney General!

Fight the power!!

:D

Two powerbooks. No HD failures. One stolen. One, the screen cracked because of a fall. Still no HD failure.

I also have beautifully working 1st gen iPod. No problems at all. Well, I could use a larger HD for that one, but it's been around since they first came out, and written to almost daily with no problems.

Now, I have friends who have bought Macs with bad drives, bad CD burners, horrible iPods that just don't work when they should for no reason. I feel for them. I try to help them as best as I can.

Is this a reason to contact the AG? I don't think so.

The easiest (and cheapest for you) way to tell a company you don't like them is to do two things, 1) don't buy from them again 2) if your friends/family ask, don't recommend the company. Go ahead, start that class action law suit and get $.04 while the lawyer gets $6,000,000.

Didn't the college you are going to recommend a Dell anyway when you enrolled?

i was just about to make a similar post. i think my hard drive is about to fail -- HD checks are OK, but it's acting mighty weird (noises, slow).

questions:

(1) i'm sure apple will not replace my drive unless it has failed. if i go into an apple store w/ a hard drive i purchased, will they install it?

two semi-related questions:

(2) when i hit my t key, it often (>20% of the time) types t twice. what could apple do about that?

(3) i have two white spots on my screen that have been there for > 1 yr, but i haven't had the time to fix since i was working to graduate. what might about do about this? (would they replace my screen?)

(i have applecare ... for at least 1 more year)

Check if your machine falls inside Apple's "15-inch PowerBook G4 Display Repair Extension Program"?

http://www.apple.com/support/powerbook/displayprogram/

"A limited number of 15-inch PowerBook G4 computers exhibit a display issue which may cause faint white spots to appear on the screen over time. The 15-inch PowerBook G4 Repair Extension Program is a worldwide program covering replacement of LCDs that exhibit these white spots."

.

I just had a not-yet-failed drive replaced under warranty in my PB 17. Mine was reporting occasional SMART errors. It was no effort to get them to replace it.

Maybe I should sue them for using the same defective drives that everyone else uses... :rolleyes:

I have yet to have a 2.5" drive totally croak on me. I did have a pretty bad disk corruption problem on a Toshiba 18 gig about 3 years ago, and had to initialize and restore from backup on one partition after scavenging what I could. As hardware, though, I've still got the disk and it still works fine.

I've had two original Apple-supplied hard drives totally and horribly die (true hardware failure) over the years: the 40 MB drive in my used SE circa 1992 and the 500 MB drive that originally came in my 7100. Both were Quantum 3.5" SCSI drives. My dad, using a hand-me-down Performa 6116, also had an Apple Quantum SCSI HD do a face plant about 18 months ago.

OK, I also killed a Micropolis 4 gig drive once by flipping it upside down while it was running (it was in an external case).

Just remember, if you round up one thousand people with failed drives, and if Apple ships a million PowerBooks, all you've got is a failure rate of 0.001%. And you still are really pointing fingers at Fujitsu and Hitachi, not Apple. The only lawyers willing to take that one on would be Lionel Hutz and Jackie Chiles.

The Attonery General???

The auto industry sells cars that flip over and explode, people die.

Your laptop hard drive failed. Find a better cause to fight for.

2 iBooks, 2 TiPB all about 4 years old, one 17 in AlPB, Quicksilver Tower, MDD Tower, I haven't had any of these HDD fail yet, that being said I fully expect they will eventually fail and that is why i have backups of all.

I always tell friends planning to purchase a PowerBook or an iBook
to also get the Apple care extended protection plan.

Laptops get banged around a bit more than say a PowerMac. Applecare might not protect you from accidents or carelessness but at least unforseen failures are covered for a couiple of years. Where I live, repairs to PowerBooks and iBooks are heartbreakingly expensive (I'm sure this is
true elsewhere).

I have a Powerbook, I want to replace the HD not because it's failing,
but because I need a bigger drive and don't want to travel around with
my bulky external drive :(

unfortunately, i have a 17-inch powerbook and it was a model released before that generation. i'm not sure how the whitespots got there, but they became noticable 'over time', as the quote above states. i never had a chance to take it in because i absolutely needed it to finish my work.

i haven't noticed any SMART errors, but i don't really look for them regularly via. Disk Utility -- i guess i should check this daily? it's good to hear they might replace the drive. perhaps i'll take my laptop in soon to see what they'll do.

and i realize all drives will eventually fail -- i'd just like to circumvent the actual failure if possible (so i don't have downtime during busy times at work).

I run Tech Tool Pro and have it SMS me whenever a SMART (or other) error is detected on any of the machines I admin. SMART often catches things before you have a failure. However, the errors can be transient; mine had errors several times, then stopped for a day or two, then started again. So looking one time may not tell you a lot; it should be full-time monitored.

If the drive is noisy or behaving erratically, they told me they'd replace it before it fails. Nobody at the tech bench at the local store thought that was an unusual request.

nice. i might go in this weekend then. now the question is, can i upgrade to a better hard drive (and pay extra for it) :) i'd like to get my hands on one of those 100GB 7200 rpm drives they have in the new powerbooks!

They said no, they will not do any sort of exchange like that. You can always ask anyway, you get nothing if you don't ask...

I've had two HD's fail in the same PB. Both were my fault though - not enough RAM caused them to be over-accessed for long periods of times. Eventually they both started making funny noises. When the first one went, fortunately it was still *just* working enough for me to back everything up. I then bought myself a faster and larger drive from Hitachi (60GB 7200rpm instead of 30GB 4900rpm), and a few months after getting that, it started making funny noises too. Sent it back to Hitachi and eventually got a replacement. I'm now no longer using the PB that HD is in as I've got a new one .... the old PB has been passed onto my father. I am known as a power user, so to be honest, I wasn't 100% surprised when the poor little HDs gave up the ghost ...

I agree entirely with what's been said above - it's not Apple's fault in the slightest - it's not their fault if the third party hardware they use fails ....

I honestly wouldn't suspect your lack of RAM to be the fault of the hard drive failures. Drives fail! There are 3 devices in your PB that have moving parts. The HD, CD and fan. Any of the 3 are likely to fail at any time. Your HD has a maximum expected lifespan of about 5 years. That's max! It's usually warranted for 3 years.

If you look closely at the warranties that come with drives, they say the drive will last 3 years—but 3 years with a certain amount of use. One I remember seeing said 10% usage over the 3 years.

I had the HD fail in my PB17 (long sold) in January of this year. I went back to my local Apple reseller (Uficon, Pantip Plaza, Bangkok) before it failed and they sent it to Apple, who just replaced it without a murmur. Against all advice ( and I respect that advice to this day ) I had Filevault on and setting myself back up was simplicity itself.

Apple pissed me around over the logic board issue (PB15) but - as I posted at the time - one of their official service partners (I was in the UK at the time)replaced it without a blink.

Cheers
Gavin

According to the Apple Authorized Service Center I took it to, not for free. There are probably individual differences between technicians, but this technician said that according to the rules, they had to install the one that Apple sent them. If he installed another drive, he'd have to charge me the $80 for labor. So I let him install the Apple-supplied drive and then when AppleCare expired I installed my own (7200 rpm) drive, bought a FireWire enclosure and put the Apple supplied (5400 rpm refurbished) drive in that. [I'm speaking of a Desktop, not a laptop, but I imagine the rules are the same.]

Yes, the Apple supplied drive under AppleCare will likely be a refurbished drive. I wasn't very happy about that but then read AppleCare rules and it is allowed: I had one drive replaced under AppleCare in February 2004 and then that very same drive that Apple provided as a replacement failed and had to be replaced in November 2004. Fortunately I was backed up, but my wife wasn't fully backed up and she was pretty upset.

I should note that after the initial shock wore off, I have come to terms with this. From an environmental and conservation of resources standpoint, I'd much rather have as many used and failed parts be reused as possible and back up twice as often than have a pristine drive installed every time.

I don't find Apple to be at fault here; as mentioned above, drives are going to fail. Also, I imagine the AppleCare policy is standard across the industry. I might add, that I have only myself to blame here. If I had read the AppleCare agreement from the start, then I would have been aware that replacement parts are possible refurbished. [I do, in general, RTFM, but I don't often RTFEULA when it is from a trusted company.]

DiskWarrior also comes with a daemon you can install that will check every day for you.

Well, I consider myself badly hit.
I had two drives fail within 1 week or so, a few years ago. On this same Pismo that I still use. That was the primary drive and my back-up drive used in the expansion bay. Both were IBM/Hitachi 2.5". I was running off an external firewire drive untill replacements arrived. Burned a lot of CDs then:D. Both drives were replaced under warranty. Fortunately, I kept automated backups (rsyncX), still do:o. I haven't considered suing anyone for the time spent or the brouhaha resulting from feeling out on a string.

I had my drive on my PB 12" fail rather recently. But something tells me it had more to do with my shoving the thing in my backpack then throwing said backpack around when I got home (you always think the padding is enough...) Yeah, I'm dumb. But, on the flip side, the drive lasted a year and a half under heavy use and abuse.

My Powerbook Just Failed me!!
 

I have a Aluminum G4 12" 1.33 ghz powerbook. It has 512meg Ram, 1 80gig 5400 rpm HD. I bought this system in May 2004, 18 months ago. Of course no extended warranty. The logic board failed under warranty march last and now my HD. It was reporting serious error under Disk Utility SMART. Now it can't even be seen by computer when starting under system disk. It also whines real loud. I feel cheated and ripped off. I rarely move this computer, it sits on my desk. Now I have to find the money for a new HD. Add me to your list Jimmy D Houssen.

FYI there was also a battery recall by apple for this and other model G4's powerbooks.

Good Luck from a Canuck.

jimmyd@houssen.com

Anyone who thinks that it isn't apple's fault when 2nd party Hardware fails is missing the mark. Apple is passing the hardware off as their product and covering it under warranty, therefore it is in fact there responsibility.

I'd venture to say that since repair/replacement is covered by the warranty, that qualifies as living up to that responsibility. I don't think the integrity of a user's data is covered under that option, nor has it ever been, to the best of my knowledge.

What does "responsibility" mean to you? They do fix it under their warranty. Or are you saying that they are responsible for making bad hard drives that fail often? I don't get your point.

I used to work for an AASP, and have been repairing apple's under warranty (and apple's warranty guidelines) for over 6 years now. If a client of mine gets any kind of sign of hardware failure for whatever componet it may be, I can order it under warranty no problem.

As for a HD being a common bad part, yes I would say that HD is somewhat common. For one its mechanical (electro mechanical if you want to be technical about it), and the moving parts will sometimes fail. That is until we, in the near future, move to solid state HDs.

The most common part I see gone bad in apple laptops (besides user abuse) is probably a tie between main logic board and the inverter boards.

I would not fret on your hard drive failing. If its going to fail it most likely will in the first 30 days.

I'm on my third PowerBook HD. The 12 GB that originally came in my Pismo died after about 18 months. I bought a 30 GB replacement drive from otherworld computing, then it died a bit over a year and a half ago. Now I've got another HD from otherworld, this time a 60 GB 7200 rpm drive.

When the first drive died, it died hard and fast. I'm sure carrying it around on a motorcycle had something to do with it.

The second one died more slowly - lots of crashes and overlapping file errors. Once I saw the SMART status warning, I went ahead and replaced it. At the time, I was going to college and I'm sure being moved around a lot didn't help much.

The third drive is still going strong after almost two years and running at least 80% of the time - I use my Pismo as a desktop unit with external mouse, keyboard and monitor, and I almost never turn it off or put it to sleep. An uptime of a month or two is not uncommon.

No failure yet
 

My 1.25 gighz "alubook" is the 5th Mac for our family, and none has suffered a drive failure. 'Course now I"ve jinxed it, so stay tuned....

Seriously, this is the first laptop, so perhaps it will fail more quickly. I'm 2 years in with it, and so far so good. I use a Toshiba laptop at work; the drive on that has sounded like it's pushing sand around in there for a year and it still runs, so maybe the drive sounds don't tell you much. Nonetheless I back that one up every day.

I hope if my 12" Powerbook drive's going to fail, it does so soon. My Applecare is approaching its end. Just about everything else on it's been replaced. I sent it in because of a bad logicboard. The report I got back had everything replaced other than the screen and hard drive. Even the upper and lower covers! You think someone ran over it with a forklift? :confused:

I had an iBook HDD fail, but not a PB HDD.

my PB has been at Apple for about 3 weeks now ... HD and screen repair. i hope all is well when i get it back!

Mine just failed and I had forked over the $300+ for the warranty 2 years ago so I still have 1 year left but they said it was my fault and that they wouldn't cover it. I do not recommend Apple any more to friends...

Why did they say that it was your fault?

new:

1. display
2. hard drive
3. keyboard

my APP paid for itself! it's like i have a brand new computer! now i just need to upgrade to a 7200rpm drive!

anyone know how i can tell what make/model my display is? and (although i doubt it) if it might be of the higher resolution displays found in the newer powerbooks? if so, i wonder if i can hack the higher resolution in ... or does anyone know if the display resolution is tied to the powerbook model or display type?

powermac g4
 

Hi,

I've had a powermac g4 for a couple of years. Until recently, with no problems. But a few months ago, my hard drive failed. Some sectors were broken, and I decided to replace it. I bought a new hitachi 80GB 5200RPM 9.5mm disk wich I installed. Everything seemed to be all right for a few weeks and then som clunky sounds appeared. I returned the drive to the manufacturer and got a replacement drive. And then again after a few weeks the same thing happens.

Does the drive brand matter? The original drive was fujitsu and the replacements were hitachi.

What can possibly be wrong? I read somewhere on the web about a insulating sheet wich is supposed to be placed under the drive. I could not find the sheet in my powerbook. Could this be the explanation?

sorry for bad English writing.

thanks in advance for all help!

Drive brand shouldn't matter. I suppose it's possible both drives came from a flaky lot, but I don't know how likely.

When I bought my last laptop HD, I got a 7200 RPM Hitachi TravelStar from OWC - one of the best investments I've ever made for a computer. Cut my boot time by more than half and made it snappier all the way around. I highly recommend it.

I had mine crash about two months ago, but Apple eventually had to replace the mainboard of the PB. I think something was wrong with the cooling system. My mom's crashed just over a week ago.

It's something that happens. ALWAYS keep a backup somewhere. I have an USB casing for a laptop 60 GB HD that I use for backup. I have it partitioned half NTFS, half MacOS. I use it for both of my computers. Since I only use it for backup, I don't have a fear of it dying when my computer does.

Absolutely *babied* 12" PowerBook G4 died in 6 months
 

I purchased a 12" PowerBook G4 in early July 2005. Yesterday, when I turned it on, I got the spinning wheel and the system would not load. I followed Apple's Support documents online until I was starting up in Single-User Mode. The computer returned this error, the subject of which has another thread dedicated to it: "IOATAController device blocking bus".

I took it to the University Village Apple Store in Seattle the next day, jumped through all the hoops. [It’s a bit like going to the airport. You have to check in early in the morning the day you want service.] The serviceman noted casually (and a tad off-handedly) before I left that if they opened it up and found evidence of accidental damage, it would not be covered by the limited warranty. Alarm bells are still going off. I wanted to say, "Do you mean to tell me, that I am just handing over my relatively brand-new, ass-expensive piece of hardware to a trendy, niche-market company's repair staff and giving them unlimited discretion through a loophole like that?”

A nice laptop like this should not fail in 6 months, not with me. I am completely anal retentive and responsible. The way I treat my technology, it should have lasted 3 years. But that assumes a quality product. For example, I'm using a Motorola T722i I bought in June of 2003. I've left it on almost all the time, only charge it when the battery gets low, and still get 3-4 days use per charge. I built an XP Pro machine summer of 2004, it’s never had a virus, spyware, adware, or malware. That includes the semester I left it at home with my folks while I used my shiny new Mac at school.

I swear, if Apple puts me through the spanking machine, I’ll raise hell. And I’ll tell everyone I know never to “Switch”. I’ll certainly never buy another notebook from Apple.

Better consumer thinking
 

I disagree substantially. Apple has complete control over their hardware and operating system. That ought to be part of the high price tag, greater stability than in the PC market. Similar thinking appears occasionally throughout this thread, espoused by contented Mac users.

Your phrasing (highlighted) makes it seem that you are predisposed to find fault. And it's only normal for any warranty service facility to warn you about what is and what isn't covered by the warranty.

Hardware fails. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with who uses it or who manufactured it. There are always some lemons in any manufacturing run.

The HD on my iBook G4 failed after 18 months. I replaced it through MacResQ. The logic board failed after 21 months. Apple replaced the logic board, top case, optical cable and a missing foot for their base price. My iBook is well-traveled, but "abuse" was never an issue. Apple turned the machine around in 2 days (sent in by Apple Authorized Repairer).

Brief retort
 

The important word was "discretion". After reading through forums, it seems as if Apple support has little oversight. Are they just looking for the slightest sign of accidental damage to relieve themselves of any real liability? I don't even have enough money to pay the labor fee if they tried to force it on me. I'm just trying to make tuition for next semester.

I've never had a lemon before, ever. My dad's 350MHz G4 still works like it used to. (Although it never did play DVDs.) Our 1GB Apple branded external hard drive still works. Lemons are for the old American car industry. It's a good thing I back up my data on an external hard drive before I travel.

to nickade:

I think you may be overreacting bit. I had to replace the keyboard on my PB G4. In doing so, I removed the little "tamper-evident" stickers from under the keyboard. (I ordered the keyboard from somewhere else and performed the replacement myself.)

When my HD crashed, Apple repaired the computer, no questions asked. I think even though they have that written in their policy, a lot of times they are pretty lenient about it. Or perhaps I just got a technician having a good day.

PowerBook HDD replaced under warranty, but wrong OS
 

I got my PowerBook back, they repaired it under warranty. It would have been a very smooth repair only they replaced my hard drive with one with Panther instead of Tiger, which it came with. My OS discs are back at school, and I need to write cover letters for internships, so I've had to update and configure OS X 10.3 to 10.3.9, and install Microsoft Office knowing I'll have to erase the whole hard drive and re-install OS X 10.4 in less than a week. Otherwise I am satisfied with the warranty service I've received.

Wow! Looks like you were pretty lucky coz you got some formal warnings before the HD failure. The only warning I got on my iBook was a slight change in the tone of the clicking noise. Then the HD wouldn't even boot and instead of getting the usual Apple logo, I got the Smiley face/Question mark.

The funny thing was that Apple called me the week before asking me if I want to purchase Apple Care. Good thing I told them that I would need some time to think about it. The week after the warranty expired, my iBook crashed. Called them up and managed to fit in with the Apple Care even though I was a week past the warranty. Sent the iBook back, got myself a new HD and even got the bright patches on my screen fitted. Consider myself lucky coz as well as the new screen and HD for £150, I still have another two years of AC coverage. :)

my hard drive failed.

after just over a year.

on a 12" powerbook 1.33

Too bad powerbook (and ibook for that matter) HDs are not modular with an access panel. So many PC laptops do this, and apple makes their HDs hard to get to for no good reason. Other than maybe forcing the end user to go to an AASP and spend labor dollars to get it replaced.

If they made the drive more accessible you could just unscrew one screw, pull out the the modular bay. Take the HD out, replace it, put it back in and then load your OS.

I for one am all for apple making their laptops more field user replaceable.


Other than that, always back up your data b/c hard drives crash all the time:D

I suspect the reason is that Apple laptops are optimized for (small) size and weight, and for appearance, not for maintenance. Most people won't need to replace their hard drives in the life of their laptop - they usually replace the laptop with a newer model before the drive fails. What we are seeing reported in this thread are reports from those unlucky few whose drives failed unusually early for whatever reason.

I will disagree with this since we have a variety of business class laptops from HP/Compaq/Apple/Gateway/IBM, and most of those you can access ram, mini pci slot, and HD from an access panel. They are also similiar in size and weight.

The wallstreet G3 laptop was much like what I listed above. I think Apple could make them more accessible if they wanted to. It would not be impossible to design them that way.

Not that it matters to the end user, they don't replace anything hardware wise usually. This opinion is mine becuase when anything of mine breaks, I will take it apart and fix it. My ibook has gone through a HD and I replaced it myself. In a way it is fun because it is more challenging and it is something entirely different. However, after like the third time it becomes more annoying.

I bought my powerbook 12" in december 2004. By the end of august 2005 the 80GB hitachi HD had failed. Sent it back to apple but they quoted some crap about machine damage and wouldn't replace the HD. (Machine has never been dropped, etc.)

Bought my own HD (eventually, being a poor student funds are tight), installed it myself. Its a seagate 100GB and has worked flawlessly ever since.

Only problem I've noticed is the machine runs about 2°C hotter inside, and the left wrist rest gets quite hot (not unbearable to touch, just quite warm.)

3 Times
 

I have had my powerbook for 3 years, so far i have replaced the drive 3 times. One was drop related the second was not my fault and the third apple manged to do while repairing my dvd-rom drive. (They replaced it without telling me what happend my data just, when i called they said it was damaged by an apple emploeyee) I currenlty have a 120GB drive i bought online and installed myself.

Lucky i make mirrored backups once a month and rsyncx my user directory everyday.

Powerbook G4
 

I have a 17 inch Powerbook G4 purchased two years ago. My computer worked fine until May 16th. The hard drive was replaced under Applecare on May 22nd.

On June 3rd, I began to experience problems while traveling for business. Tonight, after speaking with Apple tech support, I was told my hard drive must be replaced again. I followed her instructions to run Disk Utility. However when it loaded, the name of my drive was in red letters. It said the drive failed.

The tech support person was nice enough even contacting my local Apple store to arrange an appointment. They will have to replace the drive.

I am shocked and uneasy. I have used Apple computers since 1984.

Thanks for this post. I had begun to think my situation was an anomaly.

Thanks,
Orien