Try unplugging the laptop (normally you'd remove the battery also, but you've got that covered!) and holding down the power button for a good 10 seconds, then plugging it back in and turning it on. I've straightened out several Thinkpad / Lenovos that way when they exhibit the symptoms you describe.

Might I suggest the Western Digital USB/FireWire Fat32 Formatting Utility?

If you don't plug in the sensor in the first place, the fan will run 100% all the time. Make sure the other end is plugged in where it belongs? If the sensor part really is broken, your options are kinda limited. You can mail order another one if you want, they seem to be running about $25 though I know nothing about shipping to Italy. Apple calls it a "hard drive sensor cable" and here's your google search. I would imagine if you really like hacking your hardware you could get a manual fan control and just set the fan to the highest noise you want to put up with but that's really a horrible way to treat a brand new computer. Good luck!

Hi! I've seen this several times, twice in burned up computers. In my experience this is caused by software waking up the computer after it's gone to "sleep", usually in a zipped up laptop bag where it can't ventilate. You can probably work it out by trial and error. Do you have a bluetooth mouse? If you put away your computer then stick the mouse in your bag without turning it off, when the laser reads a shift in the bag material it'll wake up your computer even though the lid is closed. Watch the white glowy light and listen for the computer drive / fan to come on. Another thing that can cause your computer to wake up is other programs trying to do something then not letting the computer go back to sleep. If it's not the mouse, close every program you have open (no dot under the icon in the dock) and see if the computer wakes up. If it doesn't, open your usual stuff one by one until you get the one that's doing it. I'd really look at hardware as a last resort, and keep a very close eye on your laptop's...

Hi! I'd absolutely start by getting three cans of air, taking it outside, opening it up and blowing it out. Swap out cans as they get cold. You may need to leave the cans in the sun for a bit and start over. Now we need to try to figure out why it's getting hot. Fire up your activity monitor (Applications -> Utilities) and watch what's going on with your CPU(s). You can click the "%CPU" to sort by what program is loading your computer. Something fun like SETI@home would cause your symptoms nicely. Another thing you can try is watching your temp. sensors. The program I linked can show you everything that's being monitored by your computer. It might let you pinpoint what's making the heat. If you think it's the two drives, turn your computer off after it's been on a couple hours, open it up and feel them. If they're too hot to touch, disconnect them and fire it back up for a while. See if the heat problems drop or not. If they're the culprit, get some firewire 800 enclosures for them. Since you're running...

You may be able to quantify your options a bit, assuming you have a mac already. Set your dock to not auto-hide and put Activity Monitor (from Applications -> Utilities)in it. Right click on the icon in the dock and choose Dock Icon / Show Disk Activity. Now open the programs you think you'd use and do what you expect you would do in them, keeping an eye on that icon. Now as I understand it OS X keeps closed programs in memory for reuse if you open them up again until it fills up the existing ram, then it starts recycling (witness the dot under your Safari / iTunes after you close them) so you could expect that after the initial program load your 8 Gigs of ram will work to minimize the work your drive has to do. On a somewhat related note, it's not uncommon to kit out a performance / gaming rig with a small HDD or even SSD for the OS then add in a large capacity (slow) internal or external drive for your music, movies and other programs where speed doesn't matter much but having them available does.

Hi! To clarify, are you looking for the best drive to replace your superdrive or are you more interested in discussing what new Mac laptop would best replace your current one?

Hi! It sounds like you may be having a problem with your display driver or display settings. The settings are much easier to straighten out so we'll start with that. Right click on your desktop and choose "Properties" click on the "Settings" tab (far right on top). Hit the "Colors" dropdown and choose "High Color [16 bit]". Now drag the "Screen Area" slider to the "More" side. Your display size may have been so far on the "Less" that the start bar was right off the screen. Now if you can't choose more colors in the drop down or increase the resolution via the slider, you may have the driver problem I mentioned earlier. Try starting the computer in safe mode . This should get you to 640x480 (if I remember right) and you'll have your start bar. From there you can troubleshoot your driver issue. A new / updated one appears to be available from Sony here but don't take my word as gospel, make sure you're not looking at the wrong one before installing it. Good luck!

Hi! Yeah, #1 is a toughie as you really aren't getting feedback from the machine. Is it giving you any beeps? Does it get to the "dong" sound? Worst case scenario you may need to take it to Apple and have them look at it. For #s 2,3 and 4 you have a fighting chance, but it's vital you posses an install disk, either the one the computer came with or a generic one appropriate for your hardware (tiger forG5 / Leopard or SL for Intel). For each machine, put your install disk in immediately after turning it on while holding down the "alt" key with your other hand. This can take a while but keep the alt button down. If your computer is mostly working, you should see a grey screen with icons representing all the bootable devices the computer can find. If you don't see the hard drive here you have a good clue. You should be able to choose the install disk and boot into that. Once you're booted, don't go into the OS install. Click "tools" at the top and start going through the options, being sure to run Disk...

Hi! This is a really old hard drive, probably somewhere in the 30GB size. While putting it in an external enclosure will work, I don't think I'd trust that drive. You can get a new 80 GB one for $36 shipped here. Now that's for a notebook external, if you can live with a full-size (3.5") drive you can get an even better deal, so it may be worth your time to shop around. I'd look at getting a new drive and copying the data over your network or sneakernet it with a good sized thumb drive. When you're done put the computer intact on a shelf. You can use it for restoration if something bad happens or maybe sell it to a museum someday!