About a month ago the hard drive on my G4 ibook was inaccessible and crashed (I thought). Tried every possible way to reboot with no luck. Opened the machine up and installed a new 160gb drive and it too failed after about a week. Opened up the machine again and replaced it with another drive and it too failed after about a week. I have attached an external drive and it works just fine. When the manufacturer tested the first replaced drive they said it was fine. I will not replace the logic board. The question is do I try to replace the ribbon or simply conceded defeat and go with an external drive. I hate the thought of continuing to open the machine - I have already screw up the speaker cable and striped some screws and worry I will do something really bad if I mess around with the insides some more. Any thoughts??

On a couple of those revisions there are common problems with the hard drive getting good contact. Some of the revisions the hard drive cable actually connects to the bottom of the logic board. These cables are extremely prone to coming loose and require going in and reseating the cable and they work themselves loose again over time or one good jolt. The best solution is to just tape that connection down as well as you can.

The second revision is I believe in the 1.33ghz models where the drive pins actually slide into a soldered part on the main logic board itself and there isn't really a separate cable. These are known to have problems if you don't properly install that stabilizing bar above the pin connections.

justin

thanks for the reply. I do have the 1.33mhz model. I am not sure what you mean by " if you don't properly install that stabilizing bar above the pin connections" Is there anything I can do once I open up the machine short of re-soldering??

Doug

Justin-

I thought about your reply some more. I definitely do have an orange cable that runs from the hard drive to the logic board. I will go in and check the connection on the logic board side. If it seems tight, it is worth getting a new cable??

It is definitely cheaper than a logic board, so its worth a shot