PowerBook G3 bronze keyboard

[charlieroberts]

Hello all!

I got this as a gift (strange what nerds consider gifts, other people would call this trash hehe) and with its spacious 4GB HDD I'm thinking it would benefit from a newer HDD.
I have a 160 GB IDE HDD, will this work? Even if it does not see the whole 160, I just want to give it the best fighting chance in being usable at something.
Right now im thinking writing station.

Also what OS would you recommend, I know which one is the latest supported, but maybe someone has first hand experience in using a partiular version that works better.
Or leave classic on it?

 

[Intell]

I don't think that Powerbook has support for drives over 120GB. If you put that drive in it, you'll only be able to use the first 120GB worth. Depending on how much ram is installed, Tiger and OS 9 may be the best combination of operating systems.

 

[eyoungren]

Initech's ATA Highcap drivers would allow you to see the full size of the drive.

 

[charlieroberts]

So, I thought this would be easy, but apparently installing osx is not just about popping in the cd and hitting install?

I have been reading that I need to get a firmware update first? Also read that ram slots must have matching ram? I opened it and only saw one ram slot, empty. Is this true?

Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

 

[Intell]

If this is a model M5343 Powerbook G3, then it does have two ram slots. The other is well hidden inside the machine and Apple doesn't consider it user accessible. The most ram it can access is 512MB using PC66 3.3V 144-pin SODIMMs. That model also does not have any firmware updates and can run OS X 10.3.9 without any modifications. Tiger will have to be installed by using another Mac or cloning an existing installation onto the internal hard drive as it does not meet the requirements of having on board FireWire for the Installer to run.

 

[DeltaMac]

The second RAM slot is on the underneath side of the processor card, and not too difficult to get to.
The memory sticks do not need to match, as long as they are correct specs.

 

[charlieroberts]

If this is a model M5343 Powerbook G3, then it does have two ram slots. The other is well hidden inside the machine and Apple doesn't consider it user accessible. The most ram it can access is 512MB using PC66 3.3V 144-pin SODIMMs. That model also does not have any firmware updates and can run OS X 10.3.9 without any modifications. Tiger will have to be installed by using another Mac or cloning an existing installation onto the internal hard drive as it does not meet the requirements of having on board FireWire for the Installer to run.

Thanks!
I got my hands on an original 10.2 install disc, and the laptop won't boot to it, and os9 says the cd is unformatted. Maybe de cd drive is faulty, but then I tried using a USB drive... same problem. I even tried with OS 10.0, no go.

I was planning to panther and have also now learned that my powerbook g4 shipped with tiger so it won't install panther correctly apparently.

Any ideas?

 

[Intell]

If that is a lombard Powerbook, it cannot boot to USB. The optical drive may be bad or dirty or your disc may be faulty.