Bruce A
Level 3 (689 points)
Mac OS X

Q: disk utility 10.4

Good afternoon.

 

I still use my G4 iBook running 10.4.

 

When I recently started it up, the startup screen stalled with the apple logo and the spinning "star" below it not spinning.

 

I rebooted with the full 10.4 install disc (not machine specific), repaired some permissions, and verified the disk.

 

Same situation still exists.

 

Any ideas?

iBook white 12" G4 800 mHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Dec 27, 2015 11:57 AM

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Bruce A

Q: disk utility 10.4

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  • Helpful answers

  • by K Shaffer,

    K Shaffer K Shaffer Dec 28, 2015 9:54 AM in response to Bruce A
    Level 6 (14,350 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 28, 2015 9:54 AM in response to Bruce A

    You may need to further test the unit, to see if the hard disk drive inside

    the early G4 iBook 800MHz is in a state of failure. These may pass a

    conventional test yet still have failed in a real sense of functionality...

     

    The older ATA/IDE (Parallel) ATA hard disk drives are increasingly more

    difficult to find new, however if you are technically skilled and familiar in

    replacement or repair of these old iBook models, tedious and difficult,

    there are possible replacement in SSD (Mercury Legacy) macsales.com

    site has some lower capacity that would be fairly good.

     

    If you have an externally enclosed hard drive in self-powered enclosure

    with FireWire400 ports, and a chipset (oxford-type or compatible) for

    use with OS X system booting, this can be a preferred test method if

    you can install a working system to compatible external drive to run the

    computer. This setup also works with full system clones. Then you could

    try and tell what else is wrong with the computer, if not the internal HDD.

     

    Not sure what else to suggest.

    Good luck & happy computing!

  • by Bruce A,

    Bruce A Bruce A Dec 28, 2015 11:49 AM in response to K Shaffer
    Level 3 (689 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 28, 2015 11:49 AM in response to K Shaffer

    Thanks for your reply.

     

    The HD is about 8 years old, and it has had intermittant use for most of that time.

     

    I could replace it, but as you said, getting around inside these old iBooks is tedious.

     

    The Disk Utility checked the drive out, and it found no faults.

     

    I think that I'm going to try another drive utility (like ProSoft Drive Genius 2) before I go the hardware route.

     

    There's also the  "archive and install" upgrade option on the DVD install disc?

     

    Regards from Vermont, where snow (at last) is forecast for Tuesday!

  • by wyocop,

    wyocop wyocop Dec 28, 2015 2:18 PM in response to Bruce A
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2015 2:18 PM in response to Bruce A

    I have iBook g3,, clean hhd. I can't put 10.2 on because no ealerer OS is on. any one know what is the latest OS I can install on the iBook g3 I have 8.0; 8.5; 9.0  ?