powerbook HD/leopard question (help please!)

[iamvexed]

Hi All,

I have a Powerbook G4, 1.33Mhz , 1.25GB ram. The original Toshiba HD puked quite unexpectedly. I don't have a back-up (per se) because my Powerbook is basically a back-up for my iMac that is portable.

I put a new Seagate 120GB HD in (many thanks to those here who provided links to Newegg, where I found the best deal for the HD, links to ifixit, where I found the amazing guide, and to those who described their own ordeals, which gave me the confidence to try it myself).

Here's where things get hinky. I don't have the original restore disks for the computer, and I had upgraded to leopard. Trying the upgrade disk "worked" in that it installed the upgrade, but now the computer hangs on the gray apple screen. I let it hang for about an hour with no results. I cannot start in safe mode. I tried my imac restore disks, which tell me "Leopard cannot be installed on this computer" (Sorry if that last move was less than legal).

So I'm looking for some help proceeding. Totally flamboozled at this point--I have no idea how to proceed. Do I need to get a copy of Tiger and install that first? Can I use target firewire mode, connect to my iMac, and rock things from there (if so, how?).

Thanks so much in advance. Sorry for the moronic mistakes along the way--sadly, I learn best by making mistakes.

Edit: I should also mention that I formatted the new HD (Mac extended journaled) before installing the upgrade, and checked and repaired permissions.

 

[blodwyn]

My advice would be to try the installation again from scratch - boot the Leopard DVD and use disk utility to reformat the hard disk, then go through the whole install again

To connect your Powerbook and iMac together, join them with a Firewire cable and boot the Powerbook while holding down the 'T' key. This should mount the Powerbook hard disk on your iMac, and enable you to browse it/ format it/ transfer a disk image to it.

 

[iamvexed]

Hi Blodwyn,

Thanks so much for the reply.

So I did as you suggested, and then just used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy (much of) my iMac's HD to the new PowerBook HD, and the PB booted up swimmingly.

Are there going to be any issues down the road (with updates, etc.) for which I should keep watch?

Again, thanks so much!

 

[blodwyn]

You're very welcome. I doubt you'll have any issues with updates, I suspect something weird happened during your previous install which rendered the system unbootable, and the fresh re-installation cleared it up.