So the ol' iMac isn't looking so good. The clicky noise that has been going on for months seems to have finally hit the limit... the iMac is not definitely no longer accepting CDs and/or DVDs. And last weekend, it refused to boot up.
A hardware failure is a hardware failure, and an awesome OS can't do a thing about that. It is struggling mightily, however. It's on right now, despite being declared dead by the Apple Store Jerk Bar this afternoon.
I've backed up most of the important stuff, but I don't really know what to do with iTunes. I guess I should copy off the entire library... and work out the authorization later. The complete iPhoto library has already been duped on Rhonda's iBook. Email is a wash, again, because the iBook is on Panther, and Panther isn't about to open up Tiger mailboxes.
Since I am always brutally honest about my Apple experiences, I have to bitch about how lackluster the support has been for me lately. When I dragged the iMac down to the store (an hour drive south, by the way), they were mysteriously unable to find a problem. So I've been living with clicky noises and waiting for the final shoe to drop. Today, the guy runs Disk Utility once and then books his plane flight to Hawaii. Gone, daddy, gone. I guess no other diagnostic tool on the planet could tell him anything more substantial than "this drive is fried."
I repeatedly told him that I could still boot in target mode (where the Mac is fooled into thinking it is a dumb external firewire drive), so the data is perfectly okay. That didn't matter; I was still read the riot act on backing up data and handed several business cards for pro data recovery services.
To his credit, he quoted me $300 for an HD swap, but then pulled a Progressive and said I could probably get a larger HD installed cheaper if I went to a non-Apple tech shop. Although at this point, I don't think I want to bother, since I doubt a new HD will solve the part where the iMac refuses to see CDs/DVDs.
I bought this iMac in May of 2002, which makes it my least functional Apple product ever. I could probably still fire up my Performa 430 if I wanted to. And I know my PowerMac 7600 still works. Maybe that's why Apple abandoned the lamp design so quickly.
So something new is about to happen. I'm just not sure what yet.
