Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Powerbook G4 falls from three story balcony and almost survives

You see alot of damaged computers in desktop support,
but this morning a real doozy rolled in. This one had been
accidentally dropped from a 3 story balcony.


Almost Rectangular !



Side opposite point of impact. Some of the ports are still intact!



This side is the point of Impact. I think that it may have fallen on dirt or grass, because of the noticable green grass stains on point of impact, and noticable lack of overall shatterage.

The bad news continues, because the user would kindly like his data back, thank you. I had already made my own plans for the laptop, but decide to delay them in order to "say that I tried". First I call Onur over to take some pictures with his dope camera phone. I plug in an AC adapter and press the on button for kicks. The first good sign is that the AC adapter light comes on , and the battery appears to be charging.
Onur asks if anyone has bluetooth so he can transfer the files, then notices that "DHill's Computer" is broadcasting. This is our laptop! The screen is, of course, black, and, well, shatttered.
Next I plug it in and connect a keyboard, ethernet cable, and firewire cable. The plan is to bring it up in target mode and quickly move his files to my desktop. I end up having to peel away the case with pliers to access the sockets since nothing really "lines up" anymore... After checking that all the cords are tight, It boots with the familiar chime and mounts in firewire mode.





After "about an hour" I have moved 55 gigabytes off of the computer and saved the day.



11 comments:

Anonymous said...

My PowerBook G4 got thrown off a 2nd floor balcony during a fire, worked for 2 years after that.

Airencracken said...

How do you drop a laptop from three stories up? What an idiot.

Nick Milne said...

This blog is going places! I'm glad I found it early so I can get in on the ground floor.

Thanks, Digg! You've let me be someone for like the first time since the last time.

loganinwonder said...

props.

Anonymous said...

When I worked for Fujitsu 8 years ago we had someone call in about a laptop that she ran over with her car. She hooked it up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse and backed up her data then sent it in for repair. This one "almost" worked. What's the big deal?

John Doe said...

cool

Anonymous said...

wow thats pretty awesome who knows maybe macs really are better than PCs?!

Jeremy said...

That's pretty crazy. I wonder if my Dell would survive that fall? What camera phone was used to take those pics?

Anonymous said...

Lol awesome. Looks to be a VERY durable laptop. If it was plastic, you know it would have been Shattered EVERYWHERE on the ground.

Anonymous said...

"dhills' shit" :) amuses me.

Damn. I worry about mine sliding off the lap desk from the 2' height of the COFFEE TABLE.

Anonymous said...

hehe...

I remember when I was working for a reseller outfit right after the iMac G4 came out (you know, those cool lampshade ones).

Well, a customers office got broken into, and the swung the iMac around by the neck and threw it through a plate glass window striaght into a concrete wall.

Needless to say, the iMac was not looking pretty, but much to my surprise the hard drive was fine. Let me tell you though, repairing it was a lot of fun (and very expensive, thos necks cost like $700AU when I did that job).