Blueberry upgrade?

The 300 Mhz Blueberry is an extremely difficult Mac to upgrade to Mac OS X for these particular reasons:

1. Boot size partition size limitation if you upgrade the hard drive:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106235
This means some applications won't install because you have to separate where their data files is stored to a separate partition if you install a larger hard drive. With Mac OS X, 2 GB minimum of your hard drive is used up to begin with, and it has been arbitrarily found to need at least 15% of the hard drive free to run smoothly.

2. No Firewire, meaning any backup has to be done over USB 1.1, typically to CD burner or hard drive, but recognizing that USB 1.1 is only 12 Mbps at max speed. This also will prevent you from installing 10.4 or later unless you use http://www.macsales.com/ 's XPostfacto. But given the official RAM limit being at 256 MB + 32 MB or 64 MB (whatever your onboard RAM is would be added to that), 10.4 will barely have enough to run word processing and iTunes, and a few small games. Dashboard widgets are out of the picture.

3. No ability to boot off external hard drive or CD drive, to test the quality of your backup.

If the battery fails to charge, it could be indicative that the clock capacitor on the logicboard or the power supply has broken, and needs repair from one of these vendors, or the battery itself just needs to be re energized:

http://www.dttservice.com/
http://www.powerbookresq.com/
http://www.microdocusa.com/
http://www.macspecialist.com/
http://www.techrestore.com

To check if the firmware was updated, run the firmware update again from:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

for your iBook once you are certain your clock capacitor is happy. There is no "clock battery" unlike other Mac models, and installing the firmware when the capacitor or battery is broken, could permanently break your machine.

If you are willing to put together this house of cards, by all means do so. But unless your Mac has Firewire, I wouldn't really bother.

1. Boot size partition size limitation if you upgrade the hard drive...

Sorry but the referenced KB article has incorrect information. The boot size partition does not apply to any iBooks AFAIK and certainly doesn't apply to the "iBook (FireWire)" models.

I have never heard of anyone posting to this area being required to create an 8 GB partition to install OS X on any iBook.

Hi.
I can't imagine what the first person was talking about. I upgraded my Blueberry 300 MHz ibook a while ago with 10.2. I believe that if you start to install the firmware, and it is already installed, the computer will tell you. I had no problem with it at all, and it's a great OS too. I recently ran out of hard drive space on my 3 GB hard drive; so I replaced the hard drive with a new 40 GB drive (helped by the "ibook hard drive page" with precise directions). My new drive came with 10.3. The only problem I've had with it is that the internal modem wouldn't work in 10.3. I just copied the Apple 56 k internal version 90 script from the 10.2 library and replaced the script in the 10.3 library. Now the modem works too.
Good luck.

Blueberry Clamshell ibook 3 GB Mac OS X (10.3)

Blueberry Clamshell ibook 3 GB Mac OS X (10.3)

Performa 5200 CD, Blueberry ibook, Graphite imac Mac OS X (10.3)

Must agree with last reply...you can surely and easily upgrade a Blueberry to OS 10. You need at least 128mb extra ram chip (can get pretty cheap), but can add up to 526mb (way over priced), and need at least 256 extra to run Tiger OS 10.4 although I'd stick with Panther OS 10.3 or Jaguar OS 10.2, and be sure to install OS 9 drivers if you want to use 9.2 Classic as well. Regarding Firmware you can simply check boot rom version must be 4.1.7 not 3. something....need to have OS 9.1 or 9.2 installed before upgrading, but is a simple install....don't know about any problem with space if you upgrade hard drive.....I've done thi many times and surely would do...Just so you don't give up, and it sounds like you need a new battery unless you are sure it is good (try in another ibook), or it could be the charger board, but probably just the battery....hope this helps to give you faith in OS 10....rick