aquatherium

Q: Powerbook 180 resurrection with bootable zip disk - SCSI

I have a Powerbook 180 that I am trying to resurrect. ....I have NO system  floppies....or any way to make a bootable floppy or a old CDROM.

I do however have a Zip 100 Drive and disks through a SCSI card on my G5.

How can I make the Zip disk bootable with Disk Tools or any other bootable file structure to fix my PB180 HD.

 

I've downloaded several .smi or .img files from Apple (7.0, 7.0.1, Network Access Disk) and imaged them onto the zip drive using Disk Utility, but the PB180 keeps giving me the blinking "?"

 

I've also heard that the OS7, 8, 9 system folder on the Zip Disk needs to be "blessed", although I'm confused on why it needs to be blessed when I'm downloading the images from Apple. I've never heard of having to bless the system folder that are from image files from Apple. Only when I've copied my current system folder from my working computer to another source such as a CD or Zip Drive. Then using it later.

 

I've also used the old Iomega 4.2 extension and put it into the extentions folder on my Zip Disk so the PB180 will recognize the Zip Drive.

I've also pressed down - (Command -Shift - Option - Delete - 6) on startup to override the HD and start up on SCSI ID #6 (Zip Drive). No luck.

 

I can only guess that my zip disk is not configured to be a bootable disk, or the system folder on the disk is not blessed or a combination of both.

Is using a Floppy the only way?

 

I've checked some places on the web inlcuding Lowendmac.com, Puremac.com, Jagshouse.com, ehmac.com, and some other random websites to seek help, but nothing that really identifies my issue.

 

Can somebody help?

 

Thx.

PowerBook, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier

Posted on Oct 7, 2011 10:40 AM