My portable powers up without the battery inside it as well. I'm assuming by your email address "dartmouth.edu" that you are in Nova Scotia? (If not - pardon my ignorance). If so these machines have probably been subjected to some cold weather. I have lost 2 Mac Portable hard drives to cold weather - I'd put them in the trunk of my car, travel to location X and then fire up the Mac only to learn that the drive didn't work anymore. This was most likely due to condensation inside the drives. If I read your post correctly the drives aren't spinning up at all, but they emit noises which make it sound as if they are trying to - in this case they are most likely stuck. I have convinced old hard drives to become 'unstuck' by whacking them on the side. I know it sounds cruel but if the drive isn't working there is nothing to loose. Also, when the death chimes sound, is there a picture of a sad mac on the screen with an error number? The error number (if I remember correctly) may be a key indication as to what is happening. If your mac is repeatedly sounding the death chimes it is in some kind of endless loop and you are most likely not getting to the error #. I have also opened the drives and lubricated the 'spindle' or whatever it's called - however doing so allowed dust particles inside the drive. The end result though was a reliable, non sticking drive that works to this day. Perhaps I was lucky... Markus Blumrich - mailto:ab594@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Student: Anatomy & Computer Science / University of Saskatchewan http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab594/Profile.html "Who's the more foolish - the fool, or the fool who follows him?" - Obi-Wan Kenobi