Network boot PowerBook G3 Lombard

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Level 1

8 points

Network boot PowerBook G3 Lombard

I have a PowerBook G3 that I would like to have OS 9 running on, but the PowerBook does not have a cdrom. From what I have read USB booting is not possible with the Lombard model. I have tried looking for info about using the Lombard's VST Super Disk drive to boot from a floppy but I couldn't find any info. I have also tried to find information about network booting the Lombard (even though I dread having to setup another computer to be an installation server) but I couldn't find any info for the now ancient OS9 or Lombard. I tried to get around the problem by taking the hard drive out, putting it in a usb enclosure, connecting it to an eMac and running the OS9 install there, and then putting the drive back into the Lombard but I can not get that boot to work. I have gone in to open firmware and tried resetting to default info and have tried setting the boot-device using the command (setenv boot-device mac-io/ata-3@20000/@0:2,\ \:tbxi) but I am still not able to boot. I am hoping someone can provide information about how, by hook or by crook, to get my PowerBook working.

P.S. There should not be a space in the setenv command above between the two backslashes near the end. I put it there because this forum apparently converts two backslashes in to a new line in the post.

Power Mac G4, eMac, iBook G3 clamshell, iBook G3 dual USB, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 3, 2009 7:14 PM

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Answer 1

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

May 3, 2009 8:38 PM in response to Mario1776

Mario,

You are correct in that the Lombard will not boot via the USB port.

A few suggestions and comments...

1. When you try starting up the Lombard, do you get the flashing '?' ? One cause of the flashing '?' is corrupted PRAM, so reset and test again.

2. A missing or corrupted MacOS 9 HD driver is another possible cause for a no-boot. If your eMac is not dual-boot, meaning it can only run in Classic mode, it will not be possible to install or update the OS9 HD driver from the eMac...the option is grayed-out. The original eMac and following eMac (ATI Graphics) are dual-boot, but starting with the eMac (1GHz G4), they only boot OSX.

If you have a dual-boot eMac, I would reconnect the Lombard's HD to the eMac again, select Erase and check the box to 'Install MacOS9 HD Driver', then reinitialize. You 'should' be able to drag-copy OS9 from the eMac to the USB HD. I would then try booting the eMac to the USB HD; several of the Mac models allowed USB booting to 9.x but not 10.x.

3. I also see no reason why the later versions of MacOS 9.2.2 will not work on the Lombard. I don't believe Apple took the time to remove older, unneeded extensions, but just out of curiosity, look in the System Folder > Extensions on your eMac. The Lombard has the ATI RageLtPro graphics chip and so you should see these items :

ATI 3D Accelerator
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator
ATI Driver Update
ATI MPP Manager
ATI Radeon 3D Accelerator
ATI Rage 128 3D Accelerator
ATI Resource Manager
ATI Video Accelerator

These are the ATI extensions on my 2002 iBook G3 800MHz. Some of the earlier model-specific ATI extensions have been combined in the ATI Driver Update. The System Folder bundled with my iBook also works fine on my Wallstreet. If you have these extensions, it is likely OS9 should boot the Lombard.

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Answer 2

Mario1776 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 5, 2009 3:46 AM in response to jpl

I do get the flashing question mark, I should have mentioned it. I have reset the PRAM, but there was no change. I put the hard drive from the Lombard in to a PowerBook G3 Series (Wallstreet Series I). The Series I was able to boot without any trouble, aside from being painfully slow. I also put the drive from the Series I in to the Lombard and still got the flashing question mark. I believe the Lombard problem may have to do with either the hardware or the environment variables. I am concerned that perhaps I damaged the hard drive data cable when first taking the Lombard apart. With the Lombard, I have tried entering devalias in to open firmware and "ide0 /pci/mac-io/ata-3@20000" "hd /pci/mac-io/ata-3@20000" are displayed in the results, which would seem to indicate that the hard drive is being seen. If there are any other open firmware commands that could be used to test the functionality of the hard drive please let me know. As for the environment variables, the variables that are different in Lombard printenv & Series I printenv are listed below. I have tried setting the Lombard boot-device to "/AAPL,ROM". printenv shows that for the "Partition: common" column of printenv "/AAPL,ROM" is displayed and for the "Signature" column "hd:,\\:tbxi" is displayed.

Lombard
real—size —1
virt—slze —1
load-base 0x800000
screen—#columns 100
screen—#rows 40

Series I
real—size 100000
virt—slze 100000
load-base 4000
screen—#columns 64
screen—#rows 28

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Answer 3

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

May 5, 2009 9:42 AM in response to Mario1776

Mario,

Sorry...I have zero experience with Unix commands but you might get help over in that forum:

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=735

The HD ribbon cable and/or the IDE disk controller may be damaged. There is another oddball quirk that the Lombard has when running OSX. If you have the troublesome CPU in your Lombard, you cannot run any memory in the top slot with any version of OSX. However, people with this issue do not get the flashing '?'. Instead, they see a freeze during startup and/or random freezes when running. This does not appear to be your problem since the HD is not being picked up, but you may still have this issue once you solve the HD problem.

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Answer 4

Mario1776 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 12, 2009 1:14 AM in response to jpl

I tried to get around the problem by taking the hard drive out, putting it in a usb enclosure, connecting it to an eMac and running the OS9 install there, and then putting the drive back into the Lombard but I can not get that boot to work.

Turns out that I am an idiot. Before installing OS9 you must Initialize/Partition the drive using OS9's Drive Setup. Once I did that and then Installed OS9 the hard drive booted in the Lombard just fine.

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