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restoring powerbook with no restore disc

amemoryoncelost

amemoryoncelost

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 14, 2004
325
1
I just bought a G4 powerbook off a friend for a reasonable price. On eof the reasons, it came with the powerbook and that's it. I've already had to plunk down some change for a charger and now I want to restore it back to "brand new". How do I do this with absolutely no restore discs or anything? I do have my restore discs for my G4 powermac, but nothing else? Any ideas on where I should go or people to talk with to get this back to new? My reason for doing this is the amount of "junk" that has been colleced over the year or two he has had it.

By the way, it's the '03 model, G4 powerbook, 15", 1ghz.

anything I forgot?
 
broken_keyboard said:
Yes. You forgot to ask how to scratch the serial number off and wipe fingerprints from inside the CD drive.
Click to expand...

No need to scratch off serial numbers, I didn't get THAT good of a deal on it, heh. He said the CD's should have been in storage, so hopefully he can find them when he goes back to look again and the charger, he had one of those universal ones and was missing the apple tip, which I just bought yesterday.

You don't have to help if you don't need to. It's just frustrating dealing with a computer that I know is faster than what it's working at right now and I don't know what to do about it...
 
See if you could borrow the disc's from a friend, or see if the buyer would buy the PB w/out the CD's, see if s/he's had a mac before and has OS X Panther. Lower the price a bit. Other than that, buy Panther off of a website. Other than that, there is no other way to restore it back to factory defaults.
 
Well, I have a panther disc for my powermac,but I would probably need it for a powerbook huh? I'll call the guy back in a day or two and see if he has them, it's frustrating to say the least...
 
You could try calling apple. I seem to remember someone having lost their install disks and apple sent replacments for a nominal fee. Another possibility would be to buy used Panther disks on ebay. Or figure this is a good time to upgrade to Tiger.
 
No, actually Panther CD's are universal, no matter on what machine. They include everything really. That's as close as you will get to a Fresh Machine, unless you see if Apple will provide you w/some replacement discs. They may not though, they'll ask for the serial # and may look up who bought it originally and say: "Sorry" never know.
 
If I were you, I would just wait until April 29th and buy OS X 10.4, and do a clean install of that. Maybe buy iLife '05 too, and you'll be set.
 
LeeTom said:
If I were you, I would just wait until April 29th and buy OS X 10.4, and do a clean install of that. Maybe buy iLife '05 too, and you'll be set.
Click to expand...

2nd best idea I've heard. Sorry I have to say install with PM CD THEN buy Tiger and iLife
 
Yeah, I've been hearing lots of problems with fresh installs of tiger, but I don't see any reason not to go for it. I'll keep trying to get my version of panther to work with the powerbook. I even saw some restore discs on ebay, but we'll see what happens.

I did try yesterday to use the panther disc, but every time I click on it, it just closes right away. Like, nothing even happens, which is why I assumed it wouldn't work, I'll try some different things out. Oh yeah, holding down C didn't even work...
 
well thats a known fact too...

a friend has an Xserve & couldn't boot off the disks :S so he called apple, they asked what Xserve? O that one needs a newer diskset :p so he got a replacement...

had the same with an iMac from a friend, I had the original Panther box, and it didn't want to install from it... in this case we installed it fresh on my external FireWire drive... copied it on the iMac with Carbon Copy Cloner... to make it work :S

but its very strage your friend doesn't have the original disks... who would throw them away?? it has the specific hardware check util for it on there...
and having no poweradaptor that works?? yes the universal but without the plug??? hmm sounds strange to me... sure he didn't sell you my stolen Powerbook :p (just a joke)
 
you still have your PMG4?? boot the Pb in target, connect with that and copy your existing system from your PM onto the PB... should work too, not that fresh but at least your system, so your own 'clutter' hihi
 
amemoryoncelost said:
Yeah, I've been hearing lots of problems with fresh installs of tiger, but I don't see any reason not to go for it. I'll keep trying to get my version of panther to work with the powerbook. I even saw some restore discs on ebay, but we'll see what happens.

I did try yesterday to use the panther disc, but every time I click on it, it just closes right away. Like, nothing even happens, which is why I assumed it wouldn't work, I'll try some different things out. Oh yeah, holding down C didn't even work...
Click to expand...

Boot into OS X, click System Preferences, finally go to Startup and choose the CD. That should work.
 
Alright, I talked to the guy, still no luck on the discs. The reason most of this stuff is here and there is someone close to him passed and he had a bunch of that stuff in storage, including the powerbook. He says he'll give it another shot next time he goes out, but made no promise.

I did see some discs on ebay and a company that will do it for me. I might just drop the money for a copy of tiger, but I'd really like to start fresh if I can, it just seems to move a bit slow compared to what I've seen others capable of.

I pretty much feel like this powerbook wasn't even worth it now. I basically got a powerbook that I can't do anything major with, seems slow and no paperwork. Well, i did get a few of the warranty papers and some random cables. Who knows. I'll keep trying to get the powerbook to boot the panther disc at least and go from there. I have tried the boot from CD deal, holding down C and double clicking the icon when the disc mounts. I'm lost...
 
amemoryoncelost said:
Alright, I talked to the guy, still no luck on the discs. The reason most of this stuff is here and there is someone close to him passed and he had a bunch of that stuff in storage, including the powerbook. He says he'll give it another shot next time he goes out, but made no promise.

I did see some discs on ebay and a company that will do it for me. I might just drop the money for a copy of tiger, but I'd really like to start fresh if I can, it just seems to move a bit slow compared to what I've seen others capable of.

I pretty much feel like this powerbook wasn't even worth it now. I basically got a powerbook that I can't do anything major with, seems slow and no paperwork. Well, i did get a few of the warranty papers and some random cables. Who knows. I'll keep trying to get the powerbook to boot the panther disc at least and go from there. I have tried the boot from CD deal, holding down C and double clicking the icon when the disc mounts. I'm lost...
Click to expand...

Trust me if I had a PowerBook it would be worth it.

It doesn't sound like you are holding down the "C" key long enough.

If you don't hold the "C" key down long enough you will see the CD icon (if your computer doesn't have a bootable drive set). After you see the CD icon do not double click on it. Instead click on it once. Then look at the lower right hand corner of the screen. There is an arrow pointing to the right click on that and wait a few seconds and you will boot onto the CD.

If you have any other concerns or questions... just ask.

Hope this helps. :)
 
option boot.

amemoryoncelost said:
Yeah, I've been hearing lots of problems with fresh installs of tiger, but I don't see any reason not to go for it. I'll keep trying to get my version of panther to work with the powerbook. I even saw some restore discs on ebay, but we'll see what happens.

I did try yesterday to use the panther disc, but every time I click on it, it just closes right away. Like, nothing even happens, which is why I assumed it wouldn't work, I'll try some different things out. Oh yeah, holding down C didn't even work...
Click to expand...

Give this a try if you have a older G4 PB.

Put the panther disc in and then restart your mac. Instead of holding down C, hold down the option key. This should bring you to a blue screen where you can choose your statup disk. Just click on the Panther install disk button and click the right arrow button and it should boot of the cd. If that doesn't work, then you're out of luck. Either your Panther disc is bad or it just won't work with your system.

Which G4 laptop is it? Titanium? If it's one of the newer ones, then older discs might not work. I can't get panther CD's to boot off my 12" PB.
 
It'an 03 model. 15", 1 ghz 256mb ram, combo drive.

I tried holding down the option key, but I can't choose the disc, only boot off the HDD. I'll give an aple a call on friday or keep looking for someone who has this same computer and can let me borrow the discs or sell them to me.

thanks for all the help, I appreciate it!
 
I just put in my OS 9 install disc and everything worked fine with that. So what if I install OS 9 first and then do OS X? Do you think that would get the OS X to boot for me or should I just try and get the restore discs for the actual machine? ugh....
 
amemoryoncelost said:
I just put in my OS 9 install disc and everything worked fine with that. So what if I install OS 9 first and then do OS X? Do you think that would get the OS X to boot for me or should I just try and get the restore discs for the actual machine? ugh....
Click to expand...

You don't need OS 9 to install OS X.

From the current OS installed, when you have the OS X install disk in, go into startup disk. Does the OS X disk show up there as a bootable disk?

Is the OS X disks you have a backup copy? (burned) or are they original from Apple?

It may mean that the OS X disk you have is not bootable or not compatible with your firmware.

OR the set of disks you have are older than your PB such as one created in early 2003 and your computer manufacturered in later 2003. Older disks do not seem to work on newer machines.

Your best bet is just to "find" a copy of the Panther install CD's (there are 3 CD's for the set) and install from that. You don't need the original restore disks. But, the original restore disks do have the bundled software such as the iApps.

Hope this helps.
 
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