HELP with old powerbook g4 - no OS???

[JaVadude2009]

Good day to all.

Somebody gave me an old POwerbook G4. Don't ask me about the specs of the said laptop simply because I don't know how to look for them. Let's just say that I'm a complete idiot when it comes to Macs

Anyway, here is the problem. When I boot up the machine, the only thing I see is a folder with Mac's 2 face logo and a question mark. I did a little research and it seems like there is no OS loaded or it is corrupted. The powerbook came with a System Restore CD, so I boot up from the cd by pressing the 'C' on bootup and it booted up. By the way, the System Restore cd says it loaded Mac 9.1 (I don't know if it means anything). Going back, after it loaded, I tried doing the Software REstore... it runs alright but it stops on the part where it is supposedly downloading/installing Clip 06. Then, message on the screen appears saying 'Macintosh HD' might be unusable. I don't know if this helps but the error number is -36. Disk verify shows hard drive is OK though.

Do mac's come with more than the System Restore CD? (e.g. Installation cd like Windows) Where can I get this cd if ever? Do I have other options in solving this dilemna

please help.

 

[shadowbird423]

Nope, macs only come with system restore disks (they are full install disks for your particular machine.) You should format your disk by going to Tools (at the top of the screen) and clicking on disk utility. After doing this, try another install.
If that doesn't work, ask a PPC guru for help (i was too young to understand macs through most of that time.....), although I might be able to help with more info.
P.S: You can find your specs by clicking on the system profiler app located in the Tools section of the installer.

 

[Consultant]

Probably bad harddrive.

The specs is under the battery.

You should be able to run Mac OS up to 10.4.

 

[JaVadude2009]

System restore disks? Meaning, it's more than one? This machine came only with 1 System Restore CD 😕

Anyway, I did run the installer again and this is the exact error message

'Restoring the software configuration "PowerBook HD.img" to volume "Macintosh HD" failed. (then there is a -36 number on the bottom left corner. Then after you click on OK, another window pops up saying "The restore failed. The volume "Macintosh HD" may be unusable. Then clicking on Quit restores the initial screen (from the bootup cd)..

There aint no 'Tools' menu anywhere either...😕

 

[JaVadude2009]

I played around with the commands (anyway, it will not do anything to a write protected cd).. I mounted the powerbook hd.img and it gave me the error 'The disk "Powerbook HD>img" has a problem. Please try again or use another disk."

That's what it said.