Mac HDD Failed... What to get?

[damienlee]

I have a Powerbook G4 and I just had a very weird sound and now when I try to restart it shows the ? and sad mac head flashing back and forth in a little blue folder, meaning pretty much it cant find anything huh? I took my powerbook before and seen youtube videos, BUT...

What kinda of hard drive should i get? Whats the biggest capacity that I can get that is cheaper than 100 bucks? and where should I go? Looking around new egg, tiger direct and ebay right now but I dont know if there are some specs I need to make sure to follow when getting a new hard drive for this. Can someone help me?

PS: my cd drive doesn't really work so I will have to also do the reformat using my old ipod which I have done that before too.

Any help? thanks!

You know what the worst part is? This happened 3 days after my main studio super machines motherboard fried and I had to ship it to the company to get a new one, still waiting on the new one. Thank god my iphone is close to being a computer cause I would be freaking out alot worst than I am!

[computoman]

The seagate drives which have usually have been the most stable have been a bit flaky lately. Get one with the longest warranty possible Solid state drives will probably soon replace the traditional hard drive..

[tehboris]

The seagate drives which have usually have been the most stable have been a bit flaky lately. Get one with the longest warranty possible Solid state drives will probably soon replace the traditional hard drive..

They all have five years warranty, and it's only a particular model that was struck down with bad firmware. This model is not for laptops.

[damienlee]

Thank you for your quick reply, did you ever have to replace that battery? The only thing im really scared of is my superdrive works, but not good, sometimes if tapped, it makes noises, i think i got a peice of paper stuck in it when i tried to get a cd out, the thing is , someone dropped it so the cd slot and whatever around it is kinda bent so makes it hard for cds to come out, but i have gotten cd's to work, its just scary thinking they might not come out and ill have that hassle again. Think I should get a new superdrive or not really? i dotn know, i almost just want to sell this powerbook g4 i sware!

[xcorvis]

They all have five years warranty, and it's only a particular model that was struck down with bad firmware. This model is not for laptops.

Not so - Seagate has reduced the warranty on some products from 5 to 3 years.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/12/12/seagate_cuts_bare_drive_warranty/

I like Seagate, but given the recent issues I might choose a western digital drive if I had to buy one right now.

[dem0072]

www.newegg.com has great deals.

I'd recommend a Seagate or Western Digital for a good price and value with decent warranty. On average for laptop/notebook drives you only get a 3 year warranty.

You can try the Hitachi TravelStars, as they are rated to be some of the fastest drives you can get for a notebook. Generally they are reliable but some "isolated" failures have occurred, but that wouldn't be a barrier for me (I would be comfortable with a Hitachi drive).

Make sure you get a 7200RPM, if you're replacing it now you might well get a slight boost in performance.

If you do a lot of media rich computing, there's a nice deal going on here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148371&Tpk=2.5%20hard%20drive

BEWARE - the above drive is SATA 3.0GB/S. Make sure you know whether your current hard drive is ATA or SATA. Get the drive your laptop supports!

Also, if you want to be a scrooge (up to you) when you get a new laptop you could always pick up a cheapy older hard drive at about 60GB capacity or so and put it in the system, and take the new 250+GB drive with you and use it in a new system, or you can get an external enclosure and make your own ultra portable hard drive. For a 2.5" you should be able to pick one of those up for less than $20.