Contributing editor Joe Weinlick submits this report of his recent experience with Apple repair on a Pismo PowerBook:

A little over the month ago, the unthinkable happened ? the hard drive on my less than six month old Firewire Powerbook went bad. One day it just wouldn?t start up. Just made ?tssskt, tssskt, tssskt, tssskt? sounds over and over in a vain attempt to be useful.

The problem stymied me for quite some time before I resigned myself to sending the hard drive back to Apple. I was still getting the Mac OS logo instead of a question mark, which had me convinced this was a software problem. Starting from CD proved fruitless, however, and no variation of key combinations, alternative start-up volumes, or sacrifices to the gods would let my trusty Firewire start-up. Desperation hit. I opened it up and tried reseating the RAM, taking out the Airport card, and vacuuming out any semblance of dust that had desecrated the interior. Finally, I was able to start-up ? by physically disconnecting the hard drive.

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