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SuperMacMan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2008
194
1
Melbourne, Australia
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In need of some advice over here.
I recently came into possession of an iBook G3 (Clamshell) model M6411. Unfortunately, I believe it had a cactus HDD - it shows up in Target Disk Mode on my current model 13" MBP but refuses to format or read - locks Disk Utility/Finder up when accessed. The iBook also has NO CDROM drive in it, either (removed by previous owner, reasons unsure)

I'd just like to get it to boot to see that everything else works ok. I have a retail install of OS 9.2.1 as well as an iMac G3 OS X 10.1 install CD, and a 10.3 retail disc too.

I am aware that PPC Macs cannot boot from USB CDROM drives, but they can using FireWire. So, I tried plugging it in via FireWire to my MBP, put the MBP in Target Disk Mode, put the CD in it, and held Option while booting the iBook.

The iBook sees the CD on the MBP, I click on it to boot it, and it shows the Happy Mac (this is with the 10.1 CD). However, after about a minute, it shows a strange "broken folder" icon (a Mac OS 9 folder with a tear down the middle) on a grey background. It gets no further.

If I use the 9.2.1 CD, it shows a Happy Mac briefly then switches to a floppy disk with a question mark.

The 10.3 CD refuses to boot at all.

One thing I forgot to mention is if I try and boot the iBook normally, it shows a Finder icon alternating to a ? in a blue Mac OS 9 folder.

Can anyone shed some light on how I could just get the iBook to boot from CD? at all? Thanks!
 

SuperMacMan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2008
194
1
Melbourne, Australia
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I've done that by booting into Open Firmware and typing reset-nvram and reset-all, as well as resetting the PMU with the button below the screen/above Power button.
None has seemed to revive it, it still won't boot off my MBP.
 

SuperMacMan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2008
194
1
Melbourne, Australia
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

666sheep said:
Are these Install discs original or copied? No scratches and damages on them?

No scratches no damage. The 10.1 CD is original, however the 9.2.1 is a copy because the original was lost a long time ago (lucky I made the backup!).
 

raysfan81

macrumors 6502a
Oct 6, 2009
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No scratches no damage. The 10.1 CD is original, however the 9.2.1 is a copy because the original was lost a long time ago (lucky I made the backup!).

If the 10.1 disk came with an iMac then I believe that it is system specific just like apple restore disks are now. You would have to use a retail copy.
 

666sheep

macrumors 68040
Dec 7, 2009
3,686
291
Poland
How much RAM it has? 10.1 requires 128 MB at least IIRC. How did you make this backup of 9.2.1 (which software you've used)? Did you boot of it successfully before?
Another thought: I think that this clamshell might need firmware update to run any OS above 9.1 (but I could be wrong about that).
 
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