Powerbook 5300c & booting from CF cards (PCMCIA & as IDE drive)

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Level 1

53 points

Powerbook 5300c & booting from CF cards (PCMCIA & as IDE drive)

Hi all,

I'm trying to "upgrade" my vintage PB 5300c and replace the internal noisy slow HD to using CF cards via the IDE-CF card adaptors.

in theory, this should be pretty easy.. format the CF card as HFS, install OS (trying 8.1), connect everything and reboot.

however, I'm having severe difficulties. First, I couldn't get the 5300c to boot off the CF card via the PC card slot at all (ejects the CF card not finding any OS on it). This, I managed to figure out that using HFS+ was a bad idea. So I reformatted the CF card to HFS (standard), and then re-installed 8.1. At least this time it would recognize a system folder and try to boot.. but soon after the MacOS splash screen it crashes stating "bus error". I managed to get it to reboot once while holding the shift key, but only that once.

I've tried installing the CF card to the IDE drive chain, and managed to get it boot in OS8.6, but it's kinda slow.. so I would really like to boot into 8.1...

But either way, I need to make sure I can boot this thing via pc slot before I put it back into the IDE drive bay. so under HFS, I have tried installing a fresh copy of OS8.6, 7.6, 8.1 to no avail. it still boots fine via the internal hard drive, or using SCSI external. I haven't tried putting the CF card back onto IDE bay yet.

What is wrong? is there something wrong with the motherboard/logic board that is preventing it from booting from CF? I'm starting to think there is something more sinister than just a plain-vanilla "bad OS installation".

All installation is done on the 5300c, either through an install disk image on the CF, or the internal HD, or "drag-drop" a known working OS onto the CF.

I have at my disposal, my trusty Al-PB G4 running Leopard (kinda useless other than downloading stuff from the net and loading on to CF to get it on the PBs), PB G3 Lombarde (somehwat useful, although it won't work under 8.1, so trying the installation on that machine is useless). I also do have another 5300c with a bad power connector (the solder ripped off) so i do have some spare parts to swap if needed...

any ideas what to do? I guess I can try to install OS7.5 (painful...) instead of 7.6 and see if that works... I'm totally baffled, and I'm starting to get a bit discouraged here...

Powerbook G4 Al 15" 1.5Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Jun 21, 2009 9:24 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 24, 2009 1:31 PM in response to Jan Hedlund

Jan Hedlund wrote:
Hi again,

You should (normally) not have a problem starting from a CompactFlash card with System 7.5.3. Have you tried both PC Card slots? Is the RAM card securely in place internally?

A CF card (in a PC Card adapter) could be used for the transfer of the downloadable nineteen (US version) 7.5.3 files from one of your more modern PowerBooks to the PB 5300c. Once decoded, place the files (one .smi and eighteen .part) in a folder on the hard disk (or perhaps even on the CF card itself). Double-click on the first file (.smi) in order to mount the entire disk image. The installer will be found in the mounted image.

and older CF cards (most are 16Mb and similar, so too small)

I just tested an old Integral 16 MB CF card (SanDisk PC Card adapter) in a PowerBook 5300c (with 32 MB of RAM). The card was formatted by Drive Setup 1.7.3. A minimal (Swedish) System 7.5.3 was chosen (custom install). No problem booting (Command Option+ShiftDelete) from the CF card.

Jan

Hi Jan, I think the main problem he is having is that his cards are either too large eg 4GB or too fast eg 80x.

I'm finding a limit on the 5300cs of 1GB in terms of size. I don't have a fast 1GB card I can swipe to test yet but suspect that was the other issue as he was using these cards.

CF cards used: 1G Sandisk Ultra II
4G Kingston 4G 133x elite pro

Kevin

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Answer 2

A H1 Author

Level 1

53 points

Jun 22, 2009 8:55 AM in response to Niteshooter

many web sites, including this one, shows that 5300 can be booted from CF... and the apple web site (centered for PB 500 series, but that's essentially same as 5300 except for the CPU) also states that PCMCIA is scanned during bootup, so if it detects a working system folder, it should boot from it... (and many others seem to report using CF card as a backup drive...)

http://www.thisoldmac.ca/wordpress/2008/09/13/late-night-powerbook-5300ce-flash- hard-drive/

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA21623?viewlocale=en_US#faq8

just confused why it won't work... it's entirely possible that my particular one has a bad hardware somewhere, or it's just picky about any particular CF card for this to work...

I'm not really looking for speed boost... no matter what, it won't be any worse than its stock 500Mb noisy and slow internal! (if I want speed, running off the external SCSI Quantum Fireball gives it a pretty decent boost, but.. noisier...)

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Answer 3

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,235 points

Jun 22, 2009 4:54 PM in response to A H1

Hi,

As you have noticed, it is possible to boot a PowerBook 5300c from a CompactFlash card in an appropriate PC Card adapter for CF.

If this does not work every time, there is probably a problem with the hardware. You may want to try an alternative (plain) CF card with a relatively limited capacity. You may also want to test another PC Card adapter (perhaps something like this example). Furthermore, hold down the four keys Command(Apple) + Option(Alt) + Shift + Delete(Backspace) when booting to the CF card, if the internal hard drive is active and contains a valid system.

If nothing else works, a system folder installed by the downloadable System 7.5.3 (e.g., the North American English version here) installer is OK for this purpose. In this case, a Standard (HFS) formatting is required for the CF card.

Jan

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Answer 4

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,235 points

Jun 24, 2009 11:14 AM in response to A H1

Hi again,

You should (normally) not have a problem starting from a CompactFlash card with System 7.5.3. Have you tried both PC Card slots? Is the RAM card securely in place internally?

A CF card (in a PC Card adapter) could be used for the transfer of the downloadable nineteen (US version) 7.5.3 files from one of your more modern PowerBooks to the PB 5300c. Once decoded, place the files (one .smi and eighteen .part) in a folder on the hard disk (or perhaps even on the CF card itself). Double-click on the first file (.smi) in order to mount the entire disk image. The installer will be found in the mounted image.

and older CF cards (most are 16Mb and similar, so too small)

I just tested an old Integral 16 MB CF card (SanDisk PC Card adapter) in a PowerBook 5300c (with 32 MB of RAM). The card was formatted by Drive Setup 1.7.3. A minimal (Swedish) System 7.5.3 was chosen (custom install). No problem booting (Command Option+ShiftDelete) from the CF card.

Jan

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Answer 5

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 10, 2009 9:46 AM in response to PianoKitty

asams,

To boot to your SCSI drive, press/hold down the 'delete-option-command-shift' keys; this forces a bypass of the internal drive and the 'book looks for another bootable volume. If you have a non-Apple SCSI CD drive, the CD probably does not have the necessary CD-ROM driver to recognize the optical drive nor would the optical drive have the necessary firmware for booting.

There is a workaround:

1. Grab the "universal" Apple CD-ROM v5.3.1 (60K) extension from OS 7.6; if you need help finding one, post back.

2. Make a copy of your Disk Tools floppy that boots the 5300 (Disk Tools 7.5.3, 7.6, 8.1); put the downloaded CD-ROM driver in the Extensions folder in the System Folder of the Disk Tools floppy; you could name the floppy Special Boot Disk or whatever. If you need room, trash the Disk First Aid and/or Drive Setup.

3. With everything shut off, plug in the SCSI CD-ROM drive (never connect/disconnect a SCSI device unless all power is removed from all devices) > turn on the CD-ROM drive > put your Special Boot Disk in the floppy drive > turn on the powerbook > the 5300 will automatically boot to the floppy and should also mount the CD-ROM drive (no desktop icon until CD is loaded and mounted) > now load your CD and see if it is recognized.

4. The boot-floppy is now your OS...just launch the MacOS 9 Installer and run it.

5. In order for the SCSI CD-ROM drive to be recognized with your newly installed OS 9, trash the Apple CD-ROM driver in the Extensions folder installed by the new OS and replace it with your 'universal' driver...this will always be required.

If you do have an Apple drive, also try these...

-Are you following the correct startup procedure? All power off > connect SCSI cable and device to powerbook > turn on device > turn on powerbook; shutdown is the reverse order. Never make any hardware changes with any power on...you could damage the SCSI bus.

-Update the driver on the internal HD using Apple's Drive Setup utility.

-Reset the PRAM if necessary.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

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Answer 6

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 10, 2009 10:48 PM in response to PianoKitty

asams,

You can download the "Macintosh/System/Mac OS_8.1_Update/Disk_ToolsPPC.img.bin" here:

http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html

I will have to power up my Wallstreet, put in the floppy drive, and make sure I can make a bootable floppy before I possibly give you incorrect directions. However, it is late and I'm headed to bed.

Question: Is your 9.x CD a retail, full-install MacOS 9 CD (white label with a big orange '9') or a machine-specific 9.x CD? If the latter, you can forget trying to install 9.x from that CD.

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Answer 7

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,235 points

Jul 18, 2009 9:44 PM in response to PianoKitty

Hi,

If you somehow can make the PowerBook 5300c boot to (for example) System 7.5.3, you should not have a problem handling the modifications suggested by jpl on that machine. System 7.5.3 can read PC-formatted floppy disks, meaning that any downloads could be carried out via a PC (keep the downloaded .bin files unaltered until on the Mac). Once on the Mac, use StuffIt Expander for the decoding/decompression (drag the files onto the StuffIt Expander icon).

If you do not have StuffIt Expander for Macintosh: Use a PC to download the MACDISK.EXE file here. Prepare an empty PC-formatted 1.44 MB diskette via FORMAT A: in DOS or the full formatting option under Windows. Launch the MACDISK.EXE program on the PC. Follow the on-screen directions. The result will be a Mac-formatted disk with a ready-to-use StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 installer.

The Disk Tools PPC download contains a New Disk Image Format (NDIF) file. In order to create a floppy from such a disk image, Disk Copy 6.3.3 is used (which is the application I think jpl had in mind; the 4.2 version is for the older image type).

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way of making sector-copied floppies from NDIF files on a Windows PC. However, the old DC 4.2 disk image format works with certain PC utilities (e.g., a shareware program called WinImage). If you wish to experiment with this, one disk tools disk (suitable for a PowerBook 5300c) with an image in the old format would be the At Ease-IDE Utility Disk here. The downloaded file has to be decoded/decompressed on the PC first, via an appropriate version of Aladdin or StuffIt Expander for Windows (this is an exception; do not normally decode or unpack Mac program files on a PC). Then locate the actual image file and try the PC disk image utility. As soon as you have a bootable floppy, move to the PB 5300c.

If necessary, you could try to drag-copy the entire system folder from a startup floppy to an empty hard disk. This is often OK as a temporary operating system.

Jan

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Answer 8

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,235 points

Jul 19, 2009 4:09 AM in response to jpl

Hi jpl,

I made the Disk Tools PPC floppy on my Wallstreet running OS 9.2.1 using the older Disk Copy 4.2.

I am a bit surprised. I was not aware of any possibility to use Disk Copy 4.2 with the NDIF. In the case of the Disk Tools PPC, see also this text file.

If I (under a Swedish System 7.5.5 on a PowerBook 5300c) try to drag the Disk Tools PPC.img file (the result after a StuffIt Expander decoding of the .bin) onto the Disk Copy 4.2 program icon, nothing happens. An attempt to locate the image file in question via the Disk Copy 4.2 "Load Image File..." button is also negative. On the other hand, through Disk Copy 6.3.3 (and its "Make a Floppy..." command in the Utilities menu, from within the program) everything is fine. Are you sure that Disk Copy 6.x.x was not already installed on the machine? Could the latter program have been automatically launched when you double-clicked on the .img file, thus mounting the disk image?

Regards,

Jan

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Answer 9

A H1 Author

Level 1

53 points

Jun 21, 2009 9:29 PM in response to A H1

adding some details:
CF cards used: 1G Sandisk Ultra II
4G Kingston 4G 133x elite pro

CF/PC card adaptor: Antec PCMCIA CF adaptor

CF/IDE adaptor: Creative I/O (Syba) 44pin Ultra IDE to CF adaptor

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Answer 10

Jun 21, 2009 11:30 PM in response to A H1

Hmmm I have a funny feeling you can't boot your 5300 from a CF card. I've done system installations from them but for some reason I seem to recall they can't be booted from one.

In terms of speed, I ran a CF card to ZIF adaptor in my Acer Aspire One and found it terribly slow. Mainly the write speeds vs read. So much so that I wound up pulling the thing and reinstalling the SSD drive it came with. So it might just be the nature of CF cards in general....

Maybe wait a couple of years for SSD to come down in price?

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Answer 11

Jun 22, 2009 8:45 PM in response to A H1

Ok, I pulled out my 5300cs and gave it a whirl.

Using a Kingston 512mb CF card with PCMCIA reader I did a fresh install of OS 8 on the hard drive,
then formatted the CF card using the tools from the OS 8 CD and did a fresh install of the OS on the CF card.

Booting from HD no problem, runs fine. Booting exact same system from CF card replicates your system bus error. Booting with extensions off worked once. Tried a second time and no luck.

Noticed that the PRAM battery on the 5300 is dead. Installed a different main battery that holds a small charge.

Went on to OS 8.5. Did a clean system install from the CD to the hard drive. The formatted a new Kingston 512mb CF card in the 5300. Installed OS 8.5 from the CD.

Booted up first from the hard drive to make sure the system was compatible. No problem, also set the date and time. Restarted the PowerBook with the CF card and OS 8.5.

Boots up fine, my best guess is to check your PRAM. Is your PRAM battery and/or main battery dead?

Rest of the setup is the base installation that the CD runs, VM is ON, Disk Cache is Default, RAM disk is OFF. I have 24M of real memory with 1M of VM.

OS is using up 9.2MB with 15.5MB free. Fired up a copy of PS 3 that I installed on the CF and it worked and wasn't too slow either.

That CF to ATA adaptor would probably be the path of least resistance in some ways as I have used something similar in an AA1 and it worked ok.

Oddly enough the read/write speed of the CF card isn't as bad as I was expecting. Should probably try a larger CF card and other OS but this one will work.

Kevin

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Answer 12

A H1 Author

Level 1

53 points

Jun 22, 2009 9:53 PM in response to Niteshooter

checking PRAM battery sounds like a good advice. I'll have to do that. It might take time for me to get a replacement.

The main battery is very weak, so I've only been working off the AC power (I have it taped onto it, so it won't accidentally be pulled out). do I need the main battery working even if I'm working straight off of AC power? I've been runnning it with the battery compartment empty, mainly from the fear of the "combusting battery" history of this model... wanted to miminize any electrical overheat/fire on this machine. I'll try installing the battery and see if it makes any difference.

after you replaced the PRAM battery, were you able to boot off of anything lower than 8.5?

I think I have a 512M card somewhere. I'll try that. (tried 1G and 4G, and they both have the same problem, so..)

I wish I kept my SCSI CD-ROM drive. right now the only way to access the CD installer is making a disk image on my PB G3 onto a SCSI external HD, and then use that to install on the 5300c.

As for the OS, I think on Lowendmac.com, I've read that OS8.1 is the best compromise between speed and functionality. 8.5 was pretty unstable on my PM8600, and not sure if OS8.6 is too bloated for the 5300.

btw, my 5300 has 56Mb RAM... so not too bad.

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Answer 13

A H1 Author

Level 1

53 points

Jun 22, 2009 10:00 PM in response to Jan Hedlund

I still have the oringal installer disk (I even dug out the original Disk Tools!! but I've forgotten how slooooooooow floppy is), but having diskimage to install off of is much better. thanks! I'll also try 7.5.x. I will also update to 7.5.5 for stability.

I have tried the cmd-option-shift-delete. it will bypass the internal ok, and boot off the CF card.. except it hangs on bus error. hopefully changing PRAM battery, etc., will help, as Niteshooter suggested.

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Answer 14

Jun 23, 2009 7:39 AM in response to A H1

Hmm some thoughts.

Try your old battery, the PRAM batteries in PowerBooks are rechargeable but in most cases they seem to require a battery in the slot. Not sure if it's to do with contacts needed to complete a circuit or they piggyback some of the power off the battery but on the Pismo's I've worked on the PRAM doesn't seem to want to take a charge or charges a lot slower without a battery.

I tried going back to OS 8.0 on the 5300 since I still have it loaded on a different Kingston 512MB CF card and on each restart it came up with the bus error so my best guess is that you need to try 8.5. I installed this from the retail version (green CD).

I have the 8.6 upgrade somewhere but have a feeling that might not work.

Also have 9 floating around so may try that on a bigger card when I have some spare time...

Just to recap, I'm using some pretty old Kingston 512MB CF cards. Back before we had all the different speed ratings so these are probably the slowest ones out there. I suppose the bus could be funky enough that the newer faster cards can have an issue so I'll try a faster card I have later.

Using a Kyrocera PCMCIA CF card adaptor in the top PCMCIA slot on the 5300cs and setting it to boot from the CF card in the startup disk control panel.

I'm installing the OS from an Apple 2X CD rom attached via the special PowerBook SCSI cable to the 5300 and running the install from this. I'm formatting the CF cards with the version of disk tools on the CD I'm loading the OS from.

Then doing a normal system installation on a clean CF card.

I pulled out another 5300cs and booted it from the OS 8.5 CF card no problems booting. Tried the OS 8 CF card and bus errors out every time.

Kevin

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Answer 15

Jun 23, 2009 8:46 AM in response to A H1

Size may matter....

Ok did a bit more investigation today.

Tried to install OS 9 from a retail CD. No go, 5300 won't see it as a boot disk.

Also dug out a 2GB 80X CF card and loaded up 8.6 on it. Again no luck, kept crashing
with bus errors.

Very interesting....

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