Right... This is a bit long... My apologies!
I just got hold of a new external hard drive (a Gdrive mini) as my existing Lacie drive was getting a bit full. The new drive is bus powered, the old one is powered from the mains. The Lacie drive is Firewire 400, the Gdrive is both firewire 800 and USB. Having only one firewire port on the Macbook, I daisy-chained them together - firewire 400 cable from the macbook to the Lacie, another cable from the Lacies 400 hole to the Gdrives 800. (with one of them fancy bisexual cables)
I started to move files over but at seemingly random points the finder kept crashing resulting in this error:
The application Finder.app can't be opened.* -10810
After which, forcing the laptop to shutdown by holding the power button was the only way out. This happened a few times and it didnt seem to be related to file-size or file-type and seemed to happen pretty randomly. Anyway, after struggling with this for a while I guessed it might be a problem with daisy-chaining the drives together, so I plugged the Gdrive into a usb port instead, with the Lacie still plugged into the firewire and tried again - this time everything was fine and I was able to move all the files over with no problems.
Today, I unplugged the Lacie, plugged the Gdrive into the firewire port instead and switched on the macbook.
When I double-clicked the Gdrives icon a completely empty finder window opened with the word Window on it and the entire computer froze.. again, the only way out was to force the laptop to shutdown by holding the power button.
When I switched the laptop back on, after the usual chime sound, the hard drive (that is the computers own internal drive) made a repetitive clicking noise.. the screen was grey with nowt but an icon of a folder with a question mark on it.
A quick google search came up with plenty of forum posts all leading to the same conclusion - that my internal hard drive has fecked-up.
I tried: starting the laptop in safe mode (no luck).. starting the laptop in Target disk mode connected to an old imac via firewire (again, no luck - the imac couldnt see it) and resetting the PRAM (again, nothing) .. the only basic/obvious step I havent tried yet is booting from the Snow Leopard DVD (I have no idea where I put that!) .. but I will try that as soon as I can.
I should point out that Ive since tested the Gdrive mini on an old computer and it seems to be fine - all the files I moved are there and the other older computer seems to have no problem communicating with it over firewire.
...Now as for data recovery from the dead internal drive, from what Ive read on other forums I dont fancy my chances
... (although any suggestions are of course welcome!)
My main concern now is to replace the internal drive asap so I can get on with some work (deadlines getting closer! eek!) - but I want to rule out firewire-related problems before I do so.
I really have no idea if there is any connection at all between the weird firewire troubles and the laptops internal drive konking out..But it would be really annoying to go to the bother of replacing the internal drive, reinstalling Snow Leopard and then finding that plugging the Gdrive into the firewire port immediately fries the internal drive all over again... Did I just have a really unlucky day, and the firewire glitch and the hard drive failure are just two coincidences? Or could there be some weird problem with the laptops firewire port causing the internal drive to fail?,,, Or could the Gdrive itself be to blame in someway?
Btw, the macbook is a white Macbook3.1 2008 model (I think) running Snow Leopard, latest update.
I just got hold of a new external hard drive (a Gdrive mini) as my existing Lacie drive was getting a bit full. The new drive is bus powered, the old one is powered from the mains. The Lacie drive is Firewire 400, the Gdrive is both firewire 800 and USB. Having only one firewire port on the Macbook, I daisy-chained them together - firewire 400 cable from the macbook to the Lacie, another cable from the Lacies 400 hole to the Gdrives 800. (with one of them fancy bisexual cables)
I started to move files over but at seemingly random points the finder kept crashing resulting in this error:
The application Finder.app can't be opened.* -10810
After which, forcing the laptop to shutdown by holding the power button was the only way out. This happened a few times and it didnt seem to be related to file-size or file-type and seemed to happen pretty randomly. Anyway, after struggling with this for a while I guessed it might be a problem with daisy-chaining the drives together, so I plugged the Gdrive into a usb port instead, with the Lacie still plugged into the firewire and tried again - this time everything was fine and I was able to move all the files over with no problems.
Today, I unplugged the Lacie, plugged the Gdrive into the firewire port instead and switched on the macbook.
When I double-clicked the Gdrives icon a completely empty finder window opened with the word Window on it and the entire computer froze.. again, the only way out was to force the laptop to shutdown by holding the power button.
When I switched the laptop back on, after the usual chime sound, the hard drive (that is the computers own internal drive) made a repetitive clicking noise.. the screen was grey with nowt but an icon of a folder with a question mark on it.
A quick google search came up with plenty of forum posts all leading to the same conclusion - that my internal hard drive has fecked-up.
I tried: starting the laptop in safe mode (no luck).. starting the laptop in Target disk mode connected to an old imac via firewire (again, no luck - the imac couldnt see it) and resetting the PRAM (again, nothing) .. the only basic/obvious step I havent tried yet is booting from the Snow Leopard DVD (I have no idea where I put that!) .. but I will try that as soon as I can.
I should point out that Ive since tested the Gdrive mini on an old computer and it seems to be fine - all the files I moved are there and the other older computer seems to have no problem communicating with it over firewire.
...Now as for data recovery from the dead internal drive, from what Ive read on other forums I dont fancy my chances
... (although any suggestions are of course welcome!)My main concern now is to replace the internal drive asap so I can get on with some work (deadlines getting closer! eek!) - but I want to rule out firewire-related problems before I do so.
I really have no idea if there is any connection at all between the weird firewire troubles and the laptops internal drive konking out..But it would be really annoying to go to the bother of replacing the internal drive, reinstalling Snow Leopard and then finding that plugging the Gdrive into the firewire port immediately fries the internal drive all over again... Did I just have a really unlucky day, and the firewire glitch and the hard drive failure are just two coincidences? Or could there be some weird problem with the laptops firewire port causing the internal drive to fail?,,, Or could the Gdrive itself be to blame in someway?
Btw, the macbook is a white Macbook3.1 2008 model (I think) running Snow Leopard, latest update.