I spent the last 12 hours trying to get my 17" 1.67Ghz powerbook back.
The only thing I wanted to do was rotate my powerbook's display to view Reason with a taller resolution. I installed the ATI 4.5.6 software, (ATI's file description say's it's good for ALL ATI cards, even OEM's or preinstalled in Macs. Even 17" powerbooks were mentioned) was able to rotate the powerbook's display no problem. I loved being able to run Reason with the longer display!!! I then rebooted and ran into kernel panic during boot. It never got to the login screen. I was able to boot in safe mode or off an MRD emergency repair cd (found on some of the mac torrent sites) and got back online to research. I found NOTHING at ATI's site or Apple's mentioning problems with this software OR how to uninstall it, reverting back to apple's drivers.
The only way I was able to get back was by deleting anything ATI related from /system/library/extensions, (found that suggestion online somewhere) removing the ATI pref pane, removing the ATI watchdog thing from my account's startup items. I could boot, but my display pref pane only showed 1440x900 in the choices for resolution. I installed the apple recommended graphics update for 17" powerbooks and was able to reboot with all the resolutions. I decided to reinstall the OSX10.4.2 update and rebooted. Kernel panic again during boot.
I repeated my steps above, deleteing ATI related things... curious though, I found not only ATI 9700 related extensions, but also ATI 8500 that weren't in there prior to reinstalling OSX10.4.2 update?? I Deleted all, reinstalled graphics update only, and here I am. Kernel panicless.
Is there any easy way to "roll back" if installing ATI's update doesn't work? I'd like to try the 4.5.1 update as others have noted that the rotate function works with that as well. Or, does anyone know how to enable the rotate option only, without installing the ATI Displays software?
Please help if you know..
Thanks.
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