The Apple thread

[Gilby]

and remember:
never (ever) walk into an Apple store without checking the safety on your credit card....

[Firefox]

There's one of those Genius Bar doodads in the Meadowhell Centre in Sheffield.

/me pictures an airy place lined with bookcases and with lazily-spinning ceiling fans. Einstein and Hawking are sat at a table that is nearly full of discarded Red Bull cans, discussing M-theory.

[littledrummerboy]

There's one of those Genius Bar doodads in the Meadowhell Centre in Sheffield.

/me pictures an airy place lined with bookcases and with lazily-spinning ceiling fans. Einstein and Hawking are sat at a table that is nearly full of discarded Red Bull cans, discussing M-theory.

It's like a bar of hatred. Just some barstools, not exciting as it sounds. I spent an hour there on the phone to shitty Apple Care!

[littledrummerboy]

Just recently started using Safari instead of Firefox on my PC. Pisses all over it, so much so that I've deleted Firefox altogether.

Hehe... ironic... I've started using Firefox on my Mac and have taken Safari off the dock. My misery of random beachball fits is over. Just wish I could replace it on the iPhone too, it crashes more often than Windows 95 on that thing...

Yeah, I removed Safari. it was really nice up until it decided it wouldn't open Hotmail

[kalmar]

Dudes, got a non-booting iBook G4 here.

Can someone point me towards a website which contains basic trouble-shooting stuff? Or tell me what to press?

I have an intel iMac myself but it's not gone wrong yet so I don't know anything about fixing them

Ta!

[Kemper_Boyd]

Get a Firewire cable, start the iBook in Target Disc Mode
(hold down T when booting and wait for the Firewire icon
to show), then make a copy of the iBook disc.

Next get the OS disc and try an archive and install, this will
restore the OS but preserve the home directories.

If you can't do either of those you'll have a lower level fault
than the OS itself.

*edit*

There should be a hardware test disc with the iBook. I'd check
to see what it is called but I've no idea where I've put the discs.
Try that first if you can, though if the iBook isn't booting I think
you'll end up doing the things I've already suggested.

[kalmar]

Cheers KB, I'll try that when I get home. I have an external firewire drive, I'm just hoping the cable from that will work for this purpose..

edit: no discs with it unfortunately. I'll dig out my OS X install disks if that'll help.

[kalmar]

OK, I've got the firewire icon up on the iBook, and the cable connected, but there's no disk appearing on my system of in the disk utility. And I can't hear a disk running in the iBook

[WiteWulf]

Doesn't sound too good, HDD's toast probably

Good luck replacing it, iBook's are an absolute shit to open up...

[Kemper_Boyd]

Try the disc utility from the install CD, that should at least tell you
something about the drive and controller. I think you can also see the
system properties from the install CD. But if you can't hear anything
it doesn't look good.

One other thing to consider is to install and boot OS X from a Firewire
drive. That would at least allow a bit more poking around before you
have to consider opening up the iBook.

[kalmar]

Try the disc utility from the install CD, that should at least tell you
something about the drive and controller. I think you can also see the
system properties from the install CD. But if you can't hear anything
it doesn't look good.

OK, no drives appear in the installer either. I'm pretty sure it's not spinning, so I guess either the controller is dead or it's just got no drive to report, so it isn't.

I think I'll stick a new drive in it then. Is there anything special about drives for iBooks, do you know?

[Kemper_Boyd]

WiteWulf wasn't kidding, it is a hell of a fiddly job to change the drive.
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G ... ent/83/14/

[lazerwalker]

If you do attempt a drive change, post here how easy you found it. My iBook's only got a 40Gb(metric) hard drive, which coupled with a 20Gb iTunes library, means I'm forever faffing around with a couple of hundred Mb of HD space left. I figure I should at least attempt to change the drive, and it's probably time to buy a new MacBook if I mess it up...

[piku]

There's one of those Genius Bar doodads in the Meadowhell Centre in Sheffield.

/me pictures an airy place lined with bookcases and with lazily-spinning ceiling fans. Einstein and Hawking are sat at a table that is nearly full of discarded Red Bull cans, discussing M-theory.

It's like a bar of hatred. Just some barstools, not exciting as it sounds. I spent an hour there on the phone to shitty Apple Care!

Yeah, it's actually just the tills as well. Not so much a bar as a counter. Mind you, it's great being able to take a piece of hardware to a specific place and have them deal with it, rather than going through the utter farce of PC World's warranty rubbish (wave 'bye' to your laptop for a month).

Questions: 30" monitors... why*...


* Bog: yes, I know you edit HD-quality video, but you're not normal, sorry

[Firefox]

Questions: 30" monitors... why*...

Wha...? Just imagine how much source code you could fit on a screen that size!