At my school we have two Macs for one of our classes. since it is a small school, I know the most about them and am pretty much the tech support for them. one of them is an iBook, and my friend was using it, it kernal panicked, and when he attempted to reboot it it had the flashing folder that tells you it can not find the boot drive. he shut it back down and restarted it again. this time it got to the login screen and kernal panicked again. I'm guessing that since it could not find the boot folder the HD is almost dead. I can get more information tomorrow, but I'm posting tonight to see if anybody has any suggestions for ways to troubleshoot it, or can tell me what is wrong with it.
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iBook G4 problems booting
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Not necessarily a dead drive at this stage... If you boot from the OSX discs, can Disk Utility recognise the hard drive? 
Not necessarily a dead drive at this stage... If you boot from the OSX discs, can Disk Utility recognise the hard drive?
Unfortunatly no one knows where the origional disks are. but I may have some tiger disks. and I definitally will have retail Panther disks if the disk utility will work on those.
You should be able to boot from any retail version of OSX newer than that which came with the machine. Alternatively, you could try using Target Disk Mode with another Mac, and then use the Disk Utility from that Mac to check the drive.
I forgot to update the thread yesterday, but I got to work with it yesterday, and it was able to be booted into target disk mode, and all that had to be done was to repair the disk from disk utility on the other Mac. thanks for the replys.
Today, I found out that it was just luck that I got it to boot up, now it is no longer booting again. When I try to boot it if it starts up at all it is now going to a grey screen that says at the top Illegal instruction at %SRR0: ff85e778 %SRR1: 00081000
after that it gives some information about the computer. when it tells me the time it says it is 1/1/1904. after the line with the date and current battery capacity it says "To continue booting, type "mac-boot" and press return. To shut down, type "shut-down" and press return."
If I type in mac-boot it gives me the folder with the flashing question mark.
does anyone have any ideas? everything from this computer did get backed up yesterday.
edit: I am ocasionally getting it to start the normal boot process but it kernal panics when it is at the grey screen with the apple logo.
after that it gives some information about the computer. when it tells me the time it says it is 1/1/1904. after the line with the date and current battery capacity it says "To continue booting, type "mac-boot" and press return. To shut down, type "shut-down" and press return."
If I type in mac-boot it gives me the folder with the flashing question mark.
does anyone have any ideas? everything from this computer did get backed up yesterday.
edit: I am ocasionally getting it to start the normal boot process but it kernal panics when it is at the grey screen with the apple logo.
Would the RAM from my 12" powerbook be the same so I could switch the RAM to test it? and if the problem was with the logic board then would my powerbook RAM possibly get fried if I put it in?
which iBook and which Powerbook??
iBooks use either PC2100 OR PC2700 and Powerbook 12" use also both but i think they are backward compatible so it should work just fine.
about your seond question, i think it's safe, i never heard of a logic board frying ram, usually your ram gets bad and you replace it and all is fine
which iBook and which Powerbook??
iBooks use either PC2100 OR PC2700 and Powerbook 12" use also both but i think they are backward compatible so it should work just fine.
about your seond question, i think it's safe, i never heard of a logic board frying ram, usually your ram gets bad and you replace it and all is fine
the powerbook is a 12" G4 1.33 Ghz and the iBook is a 14" G4 1.42Ghz.
Okay test the RAM by swapping the chips over. After that, try running the Apple Hardware Test that came with the machine. It's not brilliant but it might point us in the right direction.
Okay test the RAM by swapping the chips over. After that, try running the Apple Hardware Test that came with the machine. It's not brilliant but it might point us in the right direction.
I already tested the RAM and it still kernal panicked with just the 512MB of RAM built into the logic board. unfortunatly I also do not have the hardware test cds. is there somewhere that I can legally download a copy of them from, or a way to run it from a different computer?
Sorry, I can't really help you there. Does nobody else have an iBook G4 from which you could borrow the discs?
Well the first person I just called does not have the disks anymore either. I know one other person with a G4 iBook, but I will not be seeing her until Monday, so if she has then I'll borrow them and run the test.
Really difficult to say, mate. Macs don't have the amazing (in IT terms) resale values they used to, I guess because there are so many of them nowadays.
Hi mrkramer,
That is a big luck.
I have the same, iBook G4 1.33Ghz, middle of 2005 edition.
The Kernel Panic started 2007 March/April.
Now I find out that the problem is the connection broke between the logic board and the Airport card. It was good to know if they set the same cards or other kind. If they put the same it will come back (Very hope not!) If they put nearly the same but a little change it is a design flow what we have.
You can send me personal message here or/and e-mail as well.
Good luck again.
doki
That is a big luck.
I have the same, iBook G4 1.33Ghz, middle of 2005 edition.
The Kernel Panic started 2007 March/April.
Now I find out that the problem is the connection broke between the logic board and the Airport card. It was good to know if they set the same cards or other kind. If they put the same it will come back (Very hope not!) If they put nearly the same but a little change it is a design flow what we have.
You can send me personal message here or/and e-mail as well.
Good luck again.
doki