netboot question

[baby duck monge]

so i have an ibook with a dead HD and i'm not sure if i'm quite brave enough to open the thing up and try to replace it, and i don't really want to pay someone a lot of money to do it for me...SO
if the ibook has an airport card, could i plug a bootable drive into my mini (also with wireless) and have the ibook find it to do a netboot to make it kinda like a dumb terminal? if that would work, would it be too slow to, say, play divx on the laptop?
any other info you need to figure out if this will work? any suggestions about how to make it work? other ways of achieving the same results? any comments on replacing the HD myself? anything?
thanks in advance.

 

[jdechko]

I dont know whether or not your original idea of netbooting will work, as I have never tried it.

Replacing the hard drive is fairly easy if you are good (gentle) with a screwdriver. Just do a web search for "Replace iBook Hard Drive" and you should get some results. Read through them and determine if you're comfortable with the directions.

Any other firewire drive will be capable of achieving the same results (booting from a firewire drive, I mean). It would be inconvenient to have to carry around a drive (and a FW cable and power cable), but a smaller, self-powered (by firewire) might work. If you have an old 10/15/20 gig iPod laying around, you can install OS X on that. The drawback is that the iPod is a slow spinning drive >4200, I believe. It was never meant to be a main hard drive, and the life span is shorter, so I've read.

 

[baby duck monge]

well my plan was basically this:
i would like to be able to watch my divx cartoons and stuff on the tv, and apparently there is no good way for me to go from the video-out on my mini to the tv (it's not a nice one with DVI inputs or anything), so i was thinking i could run it through the special adaptor they make for the ibooks. the problem is that (like i said), the HD is shot. i already have a bootable drive laying around (with an install on it and everything), and i thought i could just tell the ibook to boot directly from that, but that would mean i would need the ibook and two external drives by the tv (since the other one has all the divx), and that seemed like a very inelegant solution. i thought it would be much nicer if the HDs could live elsewhere but i could still achieve the same results.

 

[MacsRgr8]

so i have an ibook with a dead HD and i'm not sure if i'm quite brave enough to open the thing up and try to replace it, and i don't really want to pay someone a lot of money to do it for me...SO
if the ibook has an airport card, could i plug a bootable drive into my mini (also with wireless) and have the ibook find it to do a netboot to make it kinda like a dumb terminal? if that would work, would it be too slow to, say, play divx on the laptop?
any other info you need to figure out if this will work? any suggestions about how to make it work? other ways of achieving the same results? any comments on replacing the HD myself? anything?
thanks in advance.

NetBooting is only possible with a NetBoot server on a fixed wired network.
I assume even 100Mb is necessary... if not 100 Mb highy recommendable.
To get a NetBoot server to run you really need Mac OS X Server. Without it, it might be possible, but very, very tough to set up. It is not just about "booting from another disk on the network" To get a NetBoot server running, you must make an NetBoot Image file (.nbi), which is basically a boot image file with extra parameters, offer it via NFS (or HTTP), have a DHCP server etc.

Woudn't it be easier to have the Mac mini booted in FireWire target disk mode, and connect it via FireWire to your iBook and access the Mac mini's drive that way?

 

[jdechko]

Woudn't it be easier to have the Mac mini booted in FireWire target disk mode, and connect it via FireWire to your iBook and access the Mac mini's drive that way?

I dont think he can do that with a dead HD in the iBook.

Basically, what he wants is a Boot Image on a networked Mini to boot up an iBook and use the iBook's A/V out to connect to a tv to watch DivX movies... i think

 

[baby duck monge]

Basically, what he wants is a Boot Image on a networked Mini to boot up an iBook and use the iBook's A/V out to connect to a tv to watch DivX movies... i think

yes, exactly this. i have a way to make it work without the network, it would just be ugly and i was hoping to avoid it. if it's not possible, though, i will have to deal with it. thanks for the help, guys!

 

[MacsRgr8]

I dont think he can do that with a dead HD in the iBook.

Basically, what he wants is a Boot Image on a networked Mini to boot up an iBook and use the iBook's A/V out to connect to a tv to watch DivX movies... i think

The idea is to boot the iBook off that Mini:

So, boot the Mini in FireWire target disk mode to let that Mac become a sort of External FireWire disk.
Then connect the iBook to the Mini via a FireWire cable.

Now he can boot the iBook off the Mini.
It's like plugging in an External FireWire HD to the iBook. Boot the iBook, and press the <OPTION> (=<ALT>) to let it search any bootable volumes. Select the FireWire disk (Mini) et voila.

 

[baby duck monge]

The idea is to boot the iBook off that Mini:

So, boot the Mini in FireWire target disk mode to let that Mac become a sort of External FireWire disk.
Then connect the iBook to the Mini via a FireWire cable.

Now he can boot the iBook off the Mini.
It's like plugging in an External FireWire HD to the iBook. Boot the iBook, and press the <OPTION> (=<ALT>) to let it search any bootable volumes. Select the FireWire disk (Mini) et voila.

i think what will end up happening is that i will do this, but i will just use the external HD that i already have so it can be a more permanent solution and i can keep the mini elsewhere. it's what i did when the HD in the ibook crashed while i was waiting for my mini to arrive, and after my powermac died. i was just hoping for a way to make it happen with minimal stuff hanging out around the tv. since that is not possible without extreme difficulty, though, i will just be trying to find a good way to conceal the drives.