The hard drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 crashed recently

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Level 1

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The hard drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 crashed recently

The hard drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 crashed recently and I've been having trouble getting it up and running again. I don't have the original install disk (it was a hand-me-down) and all my attempts at creating one new have failed (it keeps spitting the disk back out. Not sure if it was the way I burned the disk or the OS I downloaded or just that the disk drive doesn't work anymore, all of which are possible). So I tried purchasing a replacement drive with the OS already installed off of ebay. But after I installed the drive and tried to select it from the boot menu, by holding alt-option, the boot menu completely freezes, I left it sitting frozen for over an hour just to make sure it wasn't just taking a long time, but the cursor won't even move and the watch icon stops spinning. I even bought a different drive from a different seller hoping it was just the drive, same result.

I've been searching through various forums but I can't find anyone else having this problem. I've also tried some of the suggestions given for others forms of freezing like resetting the PMU and MVRAM, with no change. Does anyone have an idea as to what might be causing this? I really love that computer and I'd hate to have to get rid of it.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on May 1, 2023 2:57 PM

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Answer 1

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,815 points

May 3, 2023 11:26 AM in response to jcmoneyeyes

Hi,

Provided that the optical drive is OK, in order to start up a 12-inch PowerBook G4, you would need an appropriate Apple system disc (not a burned copy). This must be either the original system disc version for your exact model or a later retail version for all Macs. Depending on the model, see one of the following web pages for the pre-installed and maximum system versions:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_867_12.html

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.0_12.html

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_12.html

Replacing the internal hard disk drive with another (containing a operating system) would only work if the operating system version is correct for the 12-inch PowerBook G4 (see above).

One way of checking whether the optical drive works at all could be to try booting from an older (free) Linux (such as Ubuntu) live CD for PowerPC. Unfortunately, Linux PowerPC downloads are difficult to locate today. If you can find one, you should burn the ISO to a CD-R (not a CD-RW).

In case of a problem with the optical drive, it may be possible to use FireWire target disk mode, and carry out an installation via an optical drive in another suitable Mac with FireWire capabilities.

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The hard drive on my 12" Powerbook G4 crashed recently

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