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ibook G4 will boot from CD drive

Hi all,

I'm trying to boot from my Tiger install DVD using the usual method - holding down "C" while pressing the power key. The DVD drive never even spins up. All I get is a gray screen with the apple - no spinning bars.

This occurred after the latest security update trashed all logins on the machine (G4 iBook, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, 10.4.9) Immediately after entering a user password, loginwindow would crash, followed by mdimport, followed by crashserver ⚠ I could briefly boot using command-S, but that stopped working (blue screen).

I then booted of the Tiger DVD, ran Disk Utility, Hardware Profiler, and used terminal to do "nvram boot-args="-v". Disk utility showed no permission or disk problems, and the profiler showed everything was there that was supposed to be there.

Next, I did an archive-and-install. The Tiger DVD passed its verification, the installation appeared to proceed normally, the system rebooted at the end, and up came the gray screen.

All subsequent boots only came up as far as the gray screen. I reset the parameter ram (alt-command-p-r-power), waiting for three beeps. I then tried to boot off the DVD, and now the machine doesn't even spin the drive up.

Is there something I've missed? I do not have another mac to try Target mode. Any suggestions would be welcome!

TIA,
dan

white iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Jun 8, 2007 5:18 PM

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ibook G4 will boot from CD drive

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