HD swap from Vaio to iBook not recognized by iBook G3!!

[alekslove]

So I have a dead HD on the iBook. I have this Vaio we make fun off at home. (joke). The Vaio's memory slot has given up the ghost, so I take out my iBook out the closet and swipe the dust off it, and open it up because the vaio has voluntarily chosen to donate it's HD to my iBook. By the way, iBook is dual USB 500 mhz. I know I know, it's old, but still very usable and still holding it's value!! So I did the swap, stuck in a Panther disk, and nothing. Hold down C, nothing happens. So I take my MacBook, put a Tiger disk in that one, boot it up in Target Disk mode, (don't we all miss those days....), and hook it up to the iBook via fire wire. So now I boot up iBook holding C, and now the iBook boots up without flashing ? mark folder icon. So I am presented with the installation screen. I go for the Install but the internal HD from the iBook does not show up as an optional destination. So I open up disk uttility, and the drive does not show up there either. So that's where I am at right now. I don't know if I had to format the drive BEFORE i placed it in the iBook but I thought to mysef..."Self, isn't that what Disk Utility is for?". Another thing I wanted to ad is that I don't believe that the internal cd drive is being recognized as well, because the first install I attempted was a Panther install, which comes in CD. So that's why I choose the Target disk mode route with Tiger instead. The drive is a Toshiba and it came off a Sony Vaio GRX series or something..(man, their naming scheme needs some work!!!). The drive was good as far as I know. And please, save the "just buy another one" comments. I wil revive and use and enjoy and gift as many old and new macs as I possibly can and I do... so just some help please.

 

[crazyrog17]

well as long as you got the install right, it should be working. I recall the connectors on the dual USB logic boards for hard drive and optical drive being finicky...

pull the drive out again and check all connections.

maybe while it's out, you could connect it to another machine to see if it reads/can reformat it. usb to ide adapters can be had for cheap from local computer parts stores or offline for a few bucks.

 

[DmbShn41]

From what you explained, here's what I gather:

You took a HD out of a Sony Vaio and tried to get it working with the iBook. Here's what I presume is your issue. The Vaio laptop probably ran Windows XP, and chances are the drive is formatted NTFS or FAT32, and of course has Windows still installed. When you try installing in Target Disk mode, the Disk Utility software won't recognize the drive for some reason, maybe limitations in the software...

Take that HD, put it in a external enclosure or rig up a cable to connect it to your MacBook. Wipe it clean, reformat to Mac OS Journaled. Once finished, should be able to install Panther directly onto HD from MacBook. Boot up and confirm everything good, then re-install in iBook. Let me know if this works, or what you find out.

 

[milton.sheaf]

Take that HD, put it in a external enclosure or rig up a cable to connect it to your MacBook. Wipe it clean, reformat to Mac OS Journaled. Once finished, should be able to install Panther directly onto HD from MacBook. Boot up and confirm everything good, then re-install in iBook. Let me know if this works, or what you find out.

No No no. that is entirely unnecessary. That is what the Disk Utility is for on the installation CD. You enter disc utility and you should see your internal disk - no matter what. It doesn't matter if the drive has NTFS partitions or Linux partitions or no partitions at all. The contents, partitioning, and formatting of this drive are completely irrelevant. You delete everything and create your new HFS+ partition using Disk Utility in the OSX Installer.

If you're not seeing the drive from within Disk Utility, you screwed something up during the hardware installation. Take the iBook apart again and check all the logic board connectors.

 

[DmbShn41]

Wasnt sure if older versions of OS X would recognize anything foreign...It would take a little longer, but it would also cover taking the iBook apart and reinstalling it. Plus, if he plugs into the MacBook with that drive and it still won't work, then that would isolate the drive...which would would require taking the iBook apart one less time.