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iBook + Leopard = Not Booting?

F

funnylookinhat

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 31, 2009
4
0
Hey Guys,
I recently received a friend's iBook (G4 - not sure about other specs) and it isn't booting. The computer just hangs at the Apple logo when I try to boot from the hard drive.

So I decided the easiest way to fix it would be to simply take my retail leopard disc and install it on the machine (they don't need any data recovery). When I hold the option key the Leopard disc shows up fine, but after I select it and click the arrow to continue it just sits at the apple logo with a twirling loading icon. Anyone else had this issue? Any ideas?

Do I need to reset the system profile or something? Sorry I am an old-school mac newbie... my own machine is a MacBook and I'm much more familiar with it than this G4 iBook.

Thanks for the help!
-David
 
I would try two things: 1) run a hardware diagnostic by holding down the D key on startup, and 2) zap the PRAM by holding down command+option+P+R on startup.
 
What does Command+V do?

I tried replacing the hard drive... turns out that wasn't the problem.

I'll try running a diagnostic test.

It's a 500 Mhz G3 with 512 RAM.
 
funnylookinhat said:
What does Command+V do?

I tried replacing the hard drive... turns out that wasn't the problem.

I'll try running a diagnostic test.

It's a 500 Mhz G3 with 512 RAM.
Click to expand...

That machine is unsupported with Leopard because of the G3 processor and 500 Mhz clock speed. FYI it's an iBook G3, not a G4. This may be why you are having issues trying to install Leopard on it. I would try to find a Panther disc or Tiger disc (although Panther would run better) for that machine and you may have more luck.
 
Well, now I am trying Tiger and I continually get the message "Installation has failed. Please restart and try again."

I've ensured that my discs are good... so I have no idea what the problem could be.
 
Might wanna check the RAM. Got a spare DIMM lying around that you can swap in?
 
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