The computer wont boot from original boot disc

Hi, Andrew, and welcome to Apple Discussions. When you formatted your new hard drive, did you start up from a CD to do so? If so, what CD was it? Can you still start up from that CD? If you can, your optical drive is working, and the problem you're having in booting to your installer DVD is most likely a problem with the DVD itself (though it could be a problem with the drive's ability to read DVDs, as opposed to CDs).

If you are certain the DVD you're using is the original one that was shipped with your Powerbook, and not one that was shipped with some other Mac model, look at its data surface carefully. Is it clean and unscratched? Dirt or scratches could cause it to be rejected.

If the disk looks good, reset your Powerbook's PRAM: press the power-on button and immediately hold down the Command, Option, p and r keys. Keep holding them down until you've heard four startup chimes in succession, then release the keys. Insert the installer DVD. Is it retained now? If so, press the Command, Control and Power keys. Immediately after the startup chime sounds again, hold down the c key and see whether the Powerbook starts up from the DVD. Post back with results.

Hi again, Andrew.

…firstly, the original startup disc did originally work but did not contain a disc utility…

Every Apple installer disc contains a disk formatting utility: either Drive Setup if it's an OS 8 or 9 installer, or Disk Utility if it's a Jaguar (10.2.x) or later OS X installer. I'm not sure what it's called on a 10.0.x or 10.1.x disc. To access Disk Utility on an OS X installer disc (and I'm guessing this includes the 10.1.x installer that came with your Powerbook) boot to the disc and, without installing anything, choose "Disk Utility" from the Installer menu. This is academic under present circumstances, since you can't boot to your original model-specific installer. But if and when you're able to do so, you can always access Disk Utility on it in the manner described above.

Are you still able to boot to the disc you used to format your new hard drive? What disc is it, exactly, and is it a CD or a DVD? Did you carefully inspect your original DVD for dirt, fingerprints and scratches? Are you absolutely certain it's the right DVD for your particular Powerbook model, and not a model-specific disc for another Powerbook or Mac model?

The point of these questions is to determine 1) whether or not you should be able to boot to that DVD; 2) if so, whether it's probable that your drive is working properly, but your DVD is dirty or damaged, and 3) whether the drive is malfunctioning, and that's why you can't start up from the DVD. If you have the right disc, either the disc or the drive or (far less likely) both may need to be replaced, and we're trying to discover which it is. So please answer the questions.

When you're conducting tests of the Powerbook's ability to boot to a CD or DVD, and whenever you're trying to format a hard drive or install an OS, be sure to have the AC power supply connected and all external peripherals physically disconnected.

So, to review and confirm the facts: You have a PB G4 667MHz DVI with a new, blank hard drive in it, and you need to install an OS on that drive. You have the PB's original model-specific OS 9.2.2 and 10.1.4 installer CD and its original Hardware Test CD, neither of which will boot it, and both of which are ejected from the drive when you try to do so. You also have your AppleCare Protection Plan/TechTool Deluxe CD, which does boot the Powerbook (yes?) — suggesting that the optical drive is functional, at least with that CD. You were also able to boot it from a PowerMac G4 CD (or is it a DVD?) to format the new hard drive, but you haven't yet said whether you are still able to boot to that disc (Can you?). [You probably can't install OS X from that disc, and you shouldn't even if you can, because the installation would be unreliable at best if it worked at all.] You've eliminated all external devices.

All correct so far? How about answers to those questions in italics?

Have you owned this Powerbook since it was new? Has its logic board ever been replaced, to your knowledge? The only cases I know of where a Powerbook has failed to work with the discs that came with it (and the discs and the optical drive were in good condition) have been ones in which the PB's original logic board had been replaced with a faster one, resulting in a machine configuration that the original installer disc(s) didn't recognize and wouldn't work with. But even then, I believe what happened was that the discs presented the "You can't install this software on this computer" standard error message after booting the computer — not that the discs were summarily ejected without booting it. So for the present, I'm stumped.

For whatever it's worth — maybe not much — my current theory is that you have a marginally or intermittently malfunctioning optical drive. But I'm going to try to call in some reinforcements for you and see whether someone else has a brighter idea.

Meanwhile, if you have the equipment and software to do so, you might try connecting the Powerbook to another FireWire-equipped Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode, booting the other Mac to a retail OS X installer CD or DVD, and seeing whether you can then use that installer to put OS X onto your Powerbook's new hard drive. If it works, you'll have the Powerbook up and running afterward, but you may have the devil's own time getting other stuff installed on it or using its optical drive for any other tasks in normal, stand-alone working mode.

I have the TiBook in firewire target disc mode but the tiBooks os disc wont lunch the installer on the G5 Master computer that I'm using. If I try the G5's instal discs it asks for a restart.

I feel like I have to by a factory copy on OSX 10.3 or .4 o make this work.

Your conclusion is exactly right. That's why I made a point of boldfacing "retail" in my prior post, and saying "if you have the hardware and software...". I believe that to install an OS via FWTDM, you'd have to start up the host Mac (in this case the G5) from a separately-purchased, retail OS installer disc. I don't think you can run the OS installer on any of Apple's discs without starting up from that disc, and in the vast majority of cases, you can't use a model-specific installer (one that was shipped with a Mac) on a different model. So you'd have to have a retail (i.e. universal, not model-specific) installer of a sufficiently high OS version to boot the G5, in order to install that OS on the Tibook. You couldn't install any OS version lower than the one that came with the G5, because you wouldn't be able to start the G5 with it.

I'm still waiting for the cavalry.

Hi Andrew and eww,

Not familiar with much about Tiger, but I'm wondering if the newer Disk Utility used formatted the HD in such way that an OS at least as new as the DU will have to be used. It'll be interesting to see if a retail version of an OS older than the DU will indeed work. Sorry, but that's about all I can think of. Good luck.

Andrew: I really doubt that the version of DU you used has anything to do with your problem. When you start up from a CD or DVD, the OS doesn't look for and mount other drives until the very end of the startup process. I can't imagine that any condition of or on an internal hard drive could prevent a CD from even being retained in the optical drive long enough to begin the boot process. A Tibook will start up normally from a CD even without any hard drive installed in it at all.

When your Panther set arrives, we'll know more.

Hi, Andrew. I'm delighted to hear you're back up and running. Did you use Disk Utility on the Panther installer set to reformat your drive before installing the OS?

I have no theories. Sometimes things just work, and other times they don't, and sometimes we just never figure out why.