I bought a Powerbook G4 used at an estate sale (had to buy a power cord later to charge the battery and start it up.) It has OS X on it and it requires a password (with the existing user name) to login, which I don t have. What can I do to get around that? I left the sale with only the laptop and need help...
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)
You should start it up from a Mac OS X installation disc (in optical drive), erase the internal drive, and re-install Mac OS X. A PowerBook G4 can run up to Tiger (10.4.11) or Leopard (10.5.8), depending on the specific model. See if you can determine your model, using this web page (with links to detailed profiles) and any labeling on back of PowerBook's casing
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html
You don't need to find that exact model. There are two general types. The "Titanium" PowerBook G4 and "Aluminum" PowerBook G4. If it's Aluminum, it can run up to Leopard. It it's Titanium, 867 Mhz and faster can run up to Leopard; slower can run up to Tiger.
Then, you'll need to acquire the appropriate Mac OS X installation disc. There are some considerations; you can post back with what you find out about the model.
You should start it up from a Mac OS X installation disc (in optical drive), erase the internal drive, and re-install Mac OS X. A PowerBook G4 can run up to Tiger (10.4.11) or Leopard (10.5.8), depending on the specific model. See if you can determine your model, using this web page (with links to detailed profiles) and any labeling on back of PowerBook's casing
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html
You don't need to find that exact model. There are two general types. The "Titanium" PowerBook G4 and "Aluminum" PowerBook G4. If it's Aluminum, it can run up to Leopard. It it's Titanium, 867 Mhz and faster can run up to Leopard; slower can run up to Tiger.
Then, you'll need to acquire the appropriate Mac OS X installation disc. There are some considerations; you can post back with what you find out about the model.
To Kenichi Watanabe:
Thanks much for the link...very helpful to narrow down the PowerBook G4 I bought at an estate sale. It is a model A1138 (EMC N/A) Alluminum PowerBook G4 (PowerBook5,8) 1.67 15" (DLSD/HR - Al) with a 15" screen, 2 gb RAM (each 200 pin DDR2), 100 gb 7200 rpm Hitachi Travelstar ATA/IDE hard drive dated August 2005, and a 2.4X DL SuperDrive (among other features).
Do you know where the best place is to get an OS X installation disk and an appr/average cost?
I appreciate the help.
That's one of the last PowerPC-based Macs, before Apple switched to Intel processors. It can run Tiger or Leopard. Some people like Tiger better, but Leopard is newer with additional features, like Time Machine (a automated backup feature) and Spaces (multiple desktops). If you previously used Macs and own even older Mac OS 9 programs, Tiger has the Classic environment that runs a Mac OS 9 system under Mac OS X, to run (most) older Mac OS 9 (and earlier) apps. Leopard no longer has Classic.
According to the EveryMac.com profile, it originally came with 10.4.2 pre-installed. Therefore, you cannot install any version of Mac OS X that is earlier than 10.4.2. If you want Tiger, the installation disc needs have a version that is later than 10.4.2, then update it to 10.4.11. For Leopard, it can be any initial version, then update it to 10.5.8.
You need to find a "retail" disc. These are the discs sold separately in a box, for any supported Mac model. This article shows images of the old Mac OS X installation discs, and offers some advice on sourcing.
Do not get a disc that is grey, because that's a disc that came with a specific Mac model, unless you know for sure that it's from your specific PowerBook model (and you want Tiger not Leopard).
NOTE: Apple still sells the Snow Leopard installation disc, but unfortunately, Snow Leopard is Intel-only.
I can promise that you will want to use
TenFourFox: A fork of Mozilla Firefox ESR 45 for the Power Macintosh and Mac OS X Tiger PowerPC
http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/
for web browsing
😉
Kenichi,
Thanks for the very thorough reply and the advice about the OS. I think I have a good idea as to how to proceed and I hope to get it accomplished in the next week, depending on when I can the correct install disk. I'll let you know if I run into any problems I can't resolve.
To: ChitlinsCC
What isTenFourFox? And what do you mean by "a fork" of Mozilla Firefox ESR 45? What is "a fork" of Firefox? Are you taling about the Firefox browser?
You'll see why Safari that runs on Tiger or Leopard is totally unsuited for browsing web content in this day and age. 😉
"fork" is not my term 😝
At bottom, 10.4fox is Firefox only a couple of versions behind what is in wide release for modern OSes.😎
You should really try Safari first - then be amazed at the difference😁
Considering the age you may want to investigate installing Ubuntu or any other supported PPC Linux distro. Ubuntu PowerPC is supported as of 2014 vs Apples last 2009 update for 10.5.
Ubuntu Mate even has a PPC build from this year…
https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/
Mate is 'lightweight' & has some nice tweaks.
It can be tricky to setup & use but it is free and may be more secure to run something that isn't totally abandoned and gets updates. If you are planning to use it to run iTunes with older iOS devices stick with OS X but I can't see many other reasons to stick with an OS from the last decade if you can work out how to use Linux.
Kenichi,
i finally was able to secure and pay for Tiger install disks. I inserted disk 1 and restarted the CPU with the "C" key held down, which was the instruction on the disk. The drive made install sounds but stopped making sounds and nothing happened, regardless how long I waited. I tried more than once. I also checked the disk on my iMac to make sure it wasn't blank and it was good. Any idea on what the problem is?
Used Powerbook G4 needs password to login after startup.
