clamshell iBook not booting

Question

clamshell iBook not booting

I have a clamshell iBook, M2453 family. I was updating the OS from 9.1 to 9.2.1 when the machine froze during the install. Now the machine will not boot up. I get the flashing apple face and question mark.

Any ideas on how to get this working again? I'm a total noob with apple - this laptop was given to me and I've been having fun with it until now...

Before this, I was having problems getting the Aircard connected - my router is 128bit encryption - I would get the 'incorrect password' error.

Thank you for any help you can give!

iBook, Mac OS 9.1.x

Posted on Jun 18, 2012 12:11 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2012 7:58 PM in response to TheRealAnubis

A quick update. I borrowed an OS9 disk and got booted up. It won't let me complete the 9.2.1 update (that I was originally trying to do when it crashed) because it shows that there is no OS installed, but when I try to install OS9, it says that it won't go over top of the OS already installed and wants a clean install.

Again, any help would be appreciated!

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Answer 2

bund

Level 3

809 points

Jun 20, 2012 5:17 AM in response to TheRealAnubis

If your iBook has the original 3GB or 6GB HD installed (which is 12 years old by now) bad sectors might be the problem.

You first have to initialize your HD after booting up from CD

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50447

Open the Functions menu and choose Initialization Options. Click the "Low level format"; and "Zero all data";

Then try to re-install OS 9.1 again

I once had an iBook with bad sectors located in the first GB of the HD. I overrided this sectors by partitioning the HD into 2 partitions and install the OS in the second partion.

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Answer 3

Jun 20, 2012 1:15 PM in response to bund

Hi,

Thank you for the information! I will use this as a last resort, since there were a lot of programs installed on this machine.

Here's where I'm at so far:

I made a backup right after (of course) it crashed, so I found that the installer had moved over 400 files to an "installer temp" folder.

I grabbed the MacOS file and put it back in the system folder, and it booted from the HD. BUT, the fonts were all really pixellated, and none of the installed programs would show up.

I went back into the installer temp folder and started clicking on files to see what they were. Most of them told me to put them into the extensions folder, or the closed system folder.

I did this with about 20 or so files, then shut down. Before shutting down, it warned me that the system folder was messed up somehow, and the system would probably not boot. It was right. I'm not sure what the problem is, but shouldn't there be a program that will undo what the installer only did halfway?

I know I can do a format and reinstall, but I'd like to play with the installed stuff before I do that.

Thanks!

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Answer 4

Jun 20, 2012 4:15 PM in response to TheRealAnubis

Ok, I got it back to the "it will boot up" state.

It looks like you can double click each item in the "temp install" folder, and it will tell you where most of them go.

I have put several items in, but this is going to take forever, and where do some of the ones go like "chooser" ? Is there a list somewhere of what files are in the system folder?

Please tell me there's another way to get this working!

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Answer 5

Jun 22, 2012 10:36 AM in response to TheRealAnubis

Ok,

I guess we can close this because I checked out what was installed and it wasn't worth the effort considering how many things were broken.

I installed 9.2 from the CD and it's working.

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