Leopard Installer Will Not Quit and Will Not Eject

[mccarlson]

I did a really stupid thing today: I tried to install Leopard on my iBook G4, not thinking/realizing that it needs more RAM than it has to be able to install it. Now, 10 hours later, the installer disk will not quit and I can find no way to eject it. I have shut down the computer several times and then restarted while holding down the mouse button, but the damn thing just starts cranking away again. At some point, I was able to pull down and choose Quit for the Installer; eventually, a thing came up giving three options: I think they were "restart" "choose startup disk" and "don't quit." I followed the directions that also appeared and clicked "choose startup disk." It has continued to chug away for the past hour after doing that. Is there any hope that I can

a. recover my poor little iBook
b. recover the Leopard Installer Disk? I sincerely hope not to have to buy another one!

Thanks.

 

[mad jew]

Weird. Insufficient RAM should just result in an error, not a crash. Hopefully there's nothing more wrong with your machine. Anyway, are you using an external mouse or the trackpad button? What happens if you hold OPTION at startup?

 

[mccarlson]

Weird. Insufficient RAM should just result in an error, not a crash. Hopefully there's nothing more wrong with your machine. Anyway, are you using an external mouse or the trackpad button? What happens if you hold OPTION at startup?

I'm using a trackpad button. I just tried your suggestion of holding OPTION at startup. 4 icons appeared onscreen: an arrow in the shape of an incomplete circle; the OS X Installer Disk; the Mac Hard Drive; a straight arrow. The icon for the Installer Disk was depressed, so I tried clicking on the one for the hard drive, to no avail. Then I clicked on the straight arrow, and the machine went back to its chugging away, as it has done for nearly 11 hours now. It's very frustrating and disheartening.

 

[mad jew]

Damn. Do you have an external hard drive you could boot from? Do you have another Mac you could attempt to use Target Disk Mode with?

 

[mccarlson]

Damn. Do you have an external hard drive you could boot from? Do you have another Mac you could attempt to use Target Disk Mode with?

I am Mac rich--I have all of those things: an external drive, a MacBook, and an iMac, but I am not knowledgeable enough to have any idea as to how to do what you are suggesting, I am sorry to say.

 

[mad jew]

Lucky you. If OSX is installed on the external then you can pug that in, hold OPTION and boot up. It should give you the option of booting from the external, which may have better luck ejecting the disk. In the very least it should let you back up your data.

Alternatively, use the link above to initiate Target Disk Mode and see if you can do the same from here.

 

[mccarlson]

Lucky you. If OSX is installed on the external then you can pug that in, hold OPTION and boot up. It should give you the option of booting from the external, which may have better luck ejecting the disk. In the very least it should let you back up your data.

Alternatively, use the link above to initiate Target Disk Mode and see if you can do the same from here.

Thanks so much for your help! Good news, at last. I tried restarting it again, holding down OPTION, and I was more patient this time and waited until the cursor on the icon for the HD actually did something, then pressed the straight arrow, and it rebooted from the HD. I have now ejected the troublesome disk and promise I will use it more wisely next time.

Thanks again.

Mark

 

[mad jew]

Fantastic work mate! Maybe use the Apple Hardware Test that came with the machine to briefly check for any possible issues with your iBook though.