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

48 replies

A H1 Author

Level 1

53 points

Jun 27, 2009 9:45 AM in response to Niteshooter

Don't know. On my machine, it seems to behave almost identically. if it doesn't boot off the PCMCIA, it won't boot from the IDE. both adapters are basically a pass-through of pins, so I can't imagine it being that much different in terms of stability... although since the IDE bus is faster, it's possible that the performance may be different between different CF card ratings. but I have a feeling the R/W speed is bus-limited and not card-limited...

I've noticed this how the USB-based card reader reads the CF content much faster than putting it either in the PC slot or connected through camera USB ports... this wasn't much of an issue with a 3Mpix camera, but when it became 12Mpix photos with RAW, download speed became incredibly noticeable.. now we only download camera contents via USB card reader.

On a side note, I still can't get the Lombarde (PB G3 bronze keyboard.. well it's actually a Lombarde with a Pismo logic board, since the original LB fried due to thermal overload/stresses and I had to replace it off eBay purchase) to boot off CF no matter what I do. Haven't tried putting the CF in the HD bay yet. That machine seems to have some hardware pickiness "issues" among other idiosyncrasies, so... It would be nice to run off the CF to lower the power dissipation since that thing gets SO HOT and actually goes through thermal shutdown/crash occasionally. replacing the HD with CF probably would help a bit. There are reports of running 7hrs off battery using CF internal on Lombarde. so that may be a strong incentive for others to convert their old PB's to CF internal HD replacement, in addition to minimizing spinning platter issues and weight...

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jun 27, 2009 2:47 PM in response to A H1

A H1,

According to Ryan Vetter (a longtime Mac user), booting from the PC card slot was dropped on the Pismo and probably also the Lombard.

"As many may know, being able to boot a system folder from CompactFlash (Via PCMCIA/Cardbus adapter) was dropped after the Lombard (maybe the last was Wallstreet). Recentley, I read the developers notes for the Pismo and was interested to read that the Pismo Scans both Firewire and USB ports (in addition to Expansion Bay and internal IDE) for a startup disk. Using a cheap USB CompactFlash adapter, I copied Mac OS 9.2.2 onto the Flash card, set the startup disk (in startup control panel in 9.2.2) to boot from CompactFlash....and it ** well worked. Not bad, considering everything I'd previously heard said that booting from USB was not possible. A lot slower to boot than PCMCIA or internal, but none the less it works and may be a good trick to squeeze more battery life from the piz....and maybe later books. I imagine that with the use of a Firewire compactflash adapter, the speed of a System Boot from the compact flash would match the performace i got from a PCMCIA/Cardbus adpter in the old Powerbook 3500. No tests yet on how much it increase battery life, but its pretty much a given."

Jul 10, 2009 2:21 AM in response to Niteshooter

im sure this isnt too related but im trying to install Mac OS 9 on my powerbook 5300c and i cant get the thing to boot off of my scsi cd drive to install it... i get the startup chime and the happymac but i cant boot off of cd... can someone help me find out what keys to press in order to boot from scsi cd?

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 10, 2009 8:12 PM in response to PianoKitty

asams,

You can find the driver here:

http://www.macdrivermuseum.net/disk.shtml

After you make a copy of your Disk Tools floppy, remove the CD-ROM driver in the Extensions folder, if present, empty the Trash, then add the 5.3.1 driver to the Extensions folder.

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 11, 2009 10:52 AM in response to PianoKitty

asams,

I just made a bootable floppy disk (1.4MB) of the MacOS 8.1 Disk Tools image file.

1. You have the download on your desktop as 'Disk Tools PPC.img.

2. Download 'Macintosh/Utilities/Disk Copy/Disk_Copy4.2.sea.bin' at the same location, double-click to expand the file, then double-click again to open the (.sea) self-extracting archive.

3. Follow the instructions from the downloaded text 'Macintosh/Utilities/Disk Copy/Disk_Copy4.2.txt' for making a floppy disk from an .img (image) file.

4. Once the floppy has been made, open the floppy icon and drag the Drive Setup utility to the Trash and be sure to empty the trash. This will leave you plenty of room for the CD-ROM extension.

5. Open the System Folder on the floppy, then drag the CD-ROM extension on top of the Extensions folder, close all windows and eject the floppy.

6. Reload the floppy to make sure it mounts on the desktop.

7. Test the floppy: Restart with the floppy in the drive and nothing else connected to the 5300...press the 'delete-option-command-shift' keys.

8. If it boots, shut everything down, connect the CD-ROM drive and turn it on (do not load the CD yet), then turn on the 5300 while pressing the 'delete-option-command-shift' keys.

9. If startup is successful, load the 9.x CD and see if it will mount on the desktop. If so, you can install 9.x on the internal HD; the installer gives you a choice of destination.

10. Erase the internal HD so you start with a clean drive. You will of course lose all data on the HD but you can download whatever files you want lost regarding this process by just coming to this thread for the links. As I recall, if you are running a version of 7.5.x, I don't believe you can(?) or should try to update the existing 7.5.x to 9.x.

10. If successful, drag the CD to the Trash, then click Restart...it should start to the internal HD.

11. You will have to remove the CD-ROM extension from your new 9.x System Folder and install the version Apple CD-ROM v5.3.1 that you downloaded for the floppy if you want to continue using the CD-ROM drive.

Jul 18, 2009 6:59 PM in response to jpl

i do not have a second mac to deal with those files... all i have is a pc with win xp(dont shoot me the powerbook was given to me by my uncle to be my first mac... it has the right system requirements but there is no os anymore on it and it is using a sony discman SCSI CD drive and it does work cuz ive used it in system 7.5.3 PPC so can i fix it with a PC?

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 18, 2009 8:49 PM in response to PianoKitty

asams,

Since it is difficult to make a Mac-bootable floppy on a PC, it would just be easier to mail you a couple of Mac floppies with the necessary software installed. If you are interested, you could temporarily post your email address in your Public Profile and then remove it when I contact you; I just don't give out my email address. Or you could post here in the forums by writing it out such as 'johnjones at google dot com' so email address scavengers/harvesters won't see it. If you put in your Public Profile, just post back with a short message like "OK, will do".

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 18, 2009 10:00 PM in response to Jan Hedlund

Jan,

I made the Disk Tools PPC floppy on my Wallstreet running OS 9.2.1 using the older Disk Copy 4.2. Should I redo them in the event 'asams' wants the floppies from me? The floppies mount fine on the WS's desktop but I cannot test-boot them. My WS requires a minimum of OS 8.1 with a special Powerbook G3 Enabler since the WS was released post OS 8.1. You either install OS 8.1 from the Software CD that came with the WS or use a retail MacOS 8.5 CD or newer.

jpl

Level 7

28,285 points

Jul 19, 2009 10:19 AM in response to Jan Hedlund

Jan,

Yes to all questions. I did have Disk Copy 6.3.3 in my Utilities folder which is part of a standard install from the MacOS 9.2.1 CD. And I am sure your scenario applies. I just did not give it much thought since everything worked (as it usually does on a Mac).

Thanks for your analytical skills and pointing out my errors.

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,235 points

Jul 19, 2009 10:57 AM in response to jpl

Hello again,

Thank you for the clarification. If the floppy has been created from within the Disk Copy 6.3.3 program, through the Make a Floppy command under the Utilities menu, everything should be OK (a copy from a mounted image may be possible, but is usually not recommended). A couple of subsequent small floppy modifications on a Mac OS 8.x or 9.x computer would probably not affect the bootability.

Kind regards,

Jan

Jun 24, 2009 4:48 PM in response to Ben Sivertsen

Hi Ben, could you tell us which 2GB CF card you were able to get to work?

Thanks!

Kevin

Jun 27, 2009 6:46 AM in response to A H1

Hey good to hear. I wonder if the internal adapter will be less troublesome than the PCMCIA adaptors.

K

Jul 3, 2009 9:49 AM in response to A H1

Just picked up a couple of Kingston 133x Elite Pro 8 GB CF cards. These work with OS 9.1 on my 5300c formatted Macintosh Standard.

Jul 10, 2009 6:16 AM in response to PianoKitty

Usually you boot while holding down the C key.

Sometimes you can have a bad cable, though perhaps it's termination.

K

Jul 10, 2009 6:19 PM in response to jpl

i cannot seem to find the cdrom extension

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