iBook G3, boots to Open Firmware

Question

iBook G3, boots to Open Firmware

I bought a g3 iBook 600 with 128 ram, combo drive, it had a Panther install, which worked fine, I used it for about a week. Everything about the hardware worked, optical drive played movies booted into OS 9 fine booted Panther fine. I decided that I wanted a clean install of Tiger, dropped the dvd in and booted right to install disk, partitioned the drive began install, computer froze up, so I turned it off, and tried rebooting from the disk, no go, now I can only boot from a external dvd drive and disk utility wont see my hard drive or the optical drive, booting from any disk lower than 10.4 results in a failed boot, booting from combo drive takes me to Open Firmware with a Default Catch 300 error, and booting from a ubuntu disk also gives me a 300 error, I am totally lost, I am fairly certain that the computer works fine, I just need to repartition the drive to install tiger, when I run the tiger install disc and use the diskutil list in terminal it shows 3 small partitions that I think is the HD, but it wont let me edit them, with a (resource busy) or cant edit boot drive error, this iBook is ******* me off. any help would be appreciated

iHack Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3), 3TB HD's, 8GB Ram, Intel Quad, Dual Boot with 7 Pro.

Posted on May 21, 2010 8:47 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Ronda Wilson

Level 8

42,650 points

May 21, 2010 9:09 PM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.

The problem is that 128 MB of RAM. The minimum for installing Tiger is 256 MB (and I would recommend maximizing the RAM with a 512 MB module).

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514?viewlocale=en_US

It sounds like you've ended up with a partial install of Tiger which has flummoxed the iBook.

booting from any disk lower than 10.4 results in a failed boot

What other optical discs have you been trying with it?

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Answer 2

May 22, 2010 4:00 AM in response to Ronda Wilson

Actually I forgot to mention that I upped it to 640 ram.

"It sounds like you've ended up with a partial install of Tiger which has flummoxed the iBook."

Thats what I was thinking too, I just don't know how to fix it, short of ripping this thing apart and changing the hard drive, and these old iBooks are a pain in the butt to take apart.

I have tried Os 9 discs and a system folder via USB, Puma, Jaguar and Panther all retail and a Powerbook G4 restore disc, Disk Warrior, Tech Tool, Apple Hardware Check discs and a couple of Linux distros, NOTHING will boot from optical drive, and I can only boot via external drive from Tiger, I have cd and DVD both boot fine, with trying to boot without doing anything it will either go to Open Firmware or it will flash the folder icon, I have tried the reseting the open firmware, the button on the side, and zapping the pram, and I am about to give up.

Thanks

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Answer 3

May 22, 2010 8:54 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

First things first. Try Apple's suggestions for troubleshooting when a Mac starts up in Open Firmware:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US

No retail OS 9 disc will work with any of these babies. The OS 9 installation was on the Restore CD set.

Nix on the PowerBook G4 Restore disc, too.

Which version of Puma? Do you have the Restore CDs that came with the iBook when new? You may need those for recovery.

"booting from any disk lower than 10.4 results in a failed boot"

Are you saying that you can boot from the 10.4 DVD?

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Answer 4

May 22, 2010 5:14 PM in response to Ronda Wilson

I tried open firmware reset-all, and reset-nvram, didn't change anything

10.1.4 is the puma disk I have,

No I do not have any iBook restore discs, I sold them with the last iBook I ebayed because I swore I would never own another PowerPC machine, I just got this one as a smoking deal 🙂

I copied my OS 9 system folder to a USB drive and it booted but never went to the desktop, it just stayed at the old scool mac computer boot up screen

Any boot from the combo drive, will either go to open firmware with default catch 300 error, or it will go to the flashing folder and thats it

Tiger disks CD & DVD disks will boot via external drive, but the hard drive is not found by disk utility to do a install

Diskutil list shows 3 partitions that I think might be it, but they are really small, a couple kilobytes, but it won't let me edit or delete them with the command line, it tells me that it can't edit the boot disk, or resouce busy,

I am kinda rusty with Terminal, so maybe I am doing something wrong

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Answer 5

Lyssa

Level 8

41,327 points

May 22, 2010 10:40 PM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

If the hard drive in this iBook has never been replaced, there's a very real possibility that the drive has failed.

Do you have another Mac handy? If so, you can try connecting the two with a Firewire cable, then restart the troubled computer with the T key held down. The hard drive should show up on the other Mac if it's physically OK.

Another thing is that Tiger can be kinda finicky about the RAM installed on the computer. Are you certain you have the right RAM? What brand is it?

~Lyssa

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Answer 6

May 23, 2010 4:56 AM in response to Lyssa

The computer worked fine before I tried the Tiger install, I think the drive is fine.

I don't have a Mac with a firewire cable, is there a way to do TDM with ethernet?

I don't know what brand the ram is, but I have used it in other iBooks in the past successfully, I tried taking out the ram and the airport card, with no success.

If this was a Windows machine I would fix it with Linux or GParted, the Ubuntu Live disk I had wouldn't boot either, which also leads me to believe that the HD is not the problem. Is there a PPC equivalent to GParted?

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Answer 7

Lyssa

Level 8

41,327 points

May 23, 2010 6:16 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

TDM only works with a Firewire cable.

Only other suggestion have, aside from tearing down the machine and pulling the drive, is to insert the Tiger disc, then try booting with the Option key held down to see if the startup manager appears.

~Lyssa

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Answer 8

May 23, 2010 6:19 AM in response to Lyssa

"is to insert the Tiger disc, then try booting with the Option key held down to see if the startup manager appears"

Thats the only way I can get the thing to boot.

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Answer 9

May 23, 2010 7:38 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

Semi-update, I ripped my 10.2 disc as a dmg and burned it to a new disc, as the original has a few scratches on it, and it booted from the combo drive, but then it kernel panicked before getting to the installer, maybe there is something wrong with the hardware, who knows, I am getting tired of messing with this piece of crap, I just wanted a computer for my kid to watch movies on, not a weeks worth of headaches 🙂

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Answer 10

May 23, 2010 7:56 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

has nothing to do with the disk, now everything kernel panics when booting from combo drive, can't find driver for powerbook 4.1 it says, boot from external works fine, just won't show HD in disk utility still.

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Answer 11

May 23, 2010 10:57 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

I just got this one as a smoking deal

it had a Panther install, which worked fine, I used it for about a week. Everything about the hardware worked, optical drive played movies booted into OS 9 fine booted Panther fine.

Two mottos I live by:

1) If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
2) If it ain't broke, don't go tryin' to fix it.

Here's hoping that you have better luck going forward.

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Answer 12

May 31, 2010 4:34 PM in response to Ronda Wilson

I FIXED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I took a 100 gb out of a old Gateway I had lying around, followed the iFixit guide, and clean installed Tiger. Works great, Thanks for all the help guys.

hey can this run 9.2.2? it came with 9.2.1 and it wont update so I was just wondering, no biggie I don't use 9 any more but I do have some old games I want to play. There are some pretty good titles at the Macintosh Garden.

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Answer 13

May 31, 2010 5:38 PM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

I ran the 9.2.2 update from 10.4 and it installed fine.

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Answer 14

May 31, 2010 8:15 PM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

Yep. If you have Mac OS 9.2.1 installed, then the update download should work (as you found).

Thanks for posting back with your successes!

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Answer 15

Jul 3, 2010 8:28 AM in response to Dr. Daniel Jackson

You guys are they best Thanks

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