iBook disaster....

jabhome

Registered
So here is my scheme:

2.5 GB Partition with OS9.2.1
7.5 GB Partition with OSX.1

Everything is smooth as butter since my purchase of the icebook on August 4. All hell breaks loose last night.

I fire up Transmit my FTP client to upload some html files to my webpage, but the system completely locks up after 8 days of smooth sailing without a restart. I get pissed because I wanted to catch up to all those folks bragging about uptime :D.

I hit the restart button and boot back into X.1 and the log in process seems abnormally long. Upon entering my password the computer proceeds to boot up, but an error occurs stating that "Unnamed Volume could not be mounted on startup."

X.1 appears, but as I gaze at the beautiful aqua gui I notice that my OS9 partition is absent from the desktop. Scratching my head fevereshly I startup Disk Utility from within X.1. I and run a quick verify on the OS9 partition which reports that the "Keys are out of order" or something to that effect. I hit repair and pray silently to the almighty. The repair completes and I restart X.1 to see if all is well. Low and behold, same volume error appears!!!

CRAP I scream!!!! I decide to fire up OS9 itself to attempt to repair the error using OS9's First Aid. Login completely locks up while loading the OS9 extensions, "VM error on I/O" or something like that. I hit restart and load OS9 without extensions which get me into the system. I open up my user files on OS9 to backup to CD, I stored most of my X.1 users documents (i.e. music, movies, reading materials, works) on the OS9 partition. (I made OS9 Partition to large on my initial clean install, and was basically wasting space, thought OS9 partition would be a safe place for my files). I fire up Disk Verify and try a repair which fails miserably. I quick boot back into X.1. to backup my X files still left on that partition just in case.

Following the backup, thank god, I boot up using the OS9.1 installer CD, and I will run the Repair from there. Same result!!! I hit the sack and decide to call Apple Care in the morning.

Apple Care recommends that I erase the OS9 partition and try to reboot the entire OS9 system. This of course mean I lose most of my user files stored on OS9 partition, but I still have the backup from X.1.

I bite the bullet and wipe the OS9 partition clean, and proceed with the install of 9. With less than a minute left the hard drive tanks, I here a KRR PLUNK noise every second as it attempts to write the new system. Now I am terrified!!!! I call back Apple Care and a second tech tells me to format the entire drive, I think OK, I already lost my user files on OS9, and had a copy of my apps and prefs from X on disc after last nights back-up. No big deal. He tells me to use "Write drive with zeroes" to verify the drive is not corrupt. I proceed with the initialization. Everything goes as planned and proceed to install OS9.1, 9.2, 10.0.4, and 10.1 on a single partition.

BY THE WAY THE APPLE TECH SAID NOTHING IS GAINED FROM SEPERATE PARTITIONS FOR THE TWO SYSTEMS, AND SAYS APPLE MIGHT NOT SUPPORT THAT IN THE FUTURE, HE RECOMMENDED THE SWAP FILE TRICK BUT NOTHING ELSE. FUNNY SOTRY THOUGH, HE SAID THAT HIS SYSTEM WAS SETUP JUST LIKE MINE WITH TWO PARTITIONS.

With about a minute left on the 9.1 install the hard drive starts to make horrific knocking sounds. All is lost, not only do I lose the functionality of OS9, but X is wiped clean as well. I call up Apple Care and they tell me to drop it at Glendale for repair. I think to myself, cool, at least they can fix it on site, and I can constantly bug them for a status report. I call Glendale to schedule a time, and the tech tells me they don't have portable parts on site, and they will have to send my baby to Apple. DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, I am so crushed. I was loving my icebook!!!! I still do and am not bitter, hell HD's fail all the time. It has happened to me before on my Gateway. Only difference is I never enjoyed my Gateway the way I enjoyed my iBook. I will miss her while she is in the hands of strangers.

Hopefully Apple will find it in their heart to drop in a 20 GB HD by mistake, wink, wink.

Jason
 
I am extremely happy to report that the Glendale Apple store folks were very helpful. It appears that the HD did actually fail :( , but Apple will be replacing the drive at no charge. I should have my baby back in 5-7 days. In the mean time I will be on a formatted Windows box with a freshly installed copy of Red Hat 7.1 and Ximian Desktop. This Linux setup ain't half bad, it aint Aqua, but it is quicker and better looking than Windows 98.

Jason
 
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