What the heck happened???

[phreakout]

It's hard to say what exactly caused your iBook's hard drive to stop responding, but I'd say it was a corrupt file system. Depending on how long it was that you used the system and when the partition was created, I'd say it was just a coincidence that it decided to happen at that time. I guess from this moment on, you should consider running Disk Utility every so often just to make sure EVERYTHING is healthy on the hard drive. Also, another member had a good point (I think it was 'madkatt') about storing ALL of your vital digital life onto another external hard drive as a backup, so these situations don't happen again. Preventative maintenance does make a difference.

73s de Phreakout.

 

[Gil]

It's hard to say what exactly caused your iBook's hard drive to stop responding, but I'd say it was a corrupt file system. Depending on how long it was that you used the system and when the partition was created, I'd say it was just a coincidence that it decided to happen at that time. I guess from this moment on, you should consider running Disk Utility every so often just to make sure EVERYTHING is healthy on the hard drive. Also, another member had a good point (I think it was 'madkatt') about storing ALL of your vital digital life onto another external hard drive as a backup, so these situations don't happen again. Preventative maintenance does make a difference.
73s de Phreakout.

If it was a corrupt filesystem, wouldn't most of the data be irretrievable? I was able to pop it into my G3 with Jag, and fortunate back up all of my important data. What I don't understand, is that in my OP, I stated that the computer randomly froze up, and upon reboot, I got the question mark icon. I googled this a few days ago, and found other people with the exact same problem. Which leads me to believe that there is something about this machine that is "weird".

 

[phreakout]

Even if the file system was corrupted, you can still backup the data. This only means that the computer was having a hard time trying to find the necessary files it needed to access in order to continue working. It's awesome that you were able to still backup the data. In some cases, the user is out of luck and loses everything.

You said you were using Safari when this happened, correct? I can confirm that I've had this happen to me at least once recently, and this was while running Safari. I had to run Disk Utility to see if I could fix the problem. Unfortunately, some issues with the drive are still being "red-flagged", and my only solution is to start over with a fresh install of OSX and apps. Even running Tech Tool Pro wouldn't fix the issue. Keep in mind that I'm running a Pismo w/ OSX Tiger (thanks again, MacG4 ).

With a sigh of somewhat relief, you can pat yourself on the back that you got over this and are continuing on. I'm just happy for that.

73s de Phreakout.

 

[Gil]

Nope, I was using FireFox.

In the future, I will use utilities to keep tabs on the disk.