[Madison]

Hi all,

Okay, you are my last hope for an answer. Here's the deal. I bought a used iBook (500mhz, no airport) from ebay for $50, knowing it would not boot up. The previous owner said it worked fine until the hard drive crashed, now nothing. It would only boot to the circle with the slash through it. So, I bought it, put in a new drive, nothing. Here's where I'm at:

1. Will not boot up normally
2. Will boot if I hold down "option" key, lets me choose the drive, then flashing disc with question mark.
3. Will mount on my G5 via firewire target mode, erase the disc, reinstall OS X, will not boot.
4. Will NOT boot in safe mode, verbose mode, or single user mode.
5. Will boot to open firmware, then nothing
6. If I hold down cmd+option+p+r, I get the startup tone multiple times, but no boot
7. Have tried 4 laptop drives, no dice

So, any guesses?? If the logic board is the issue, that's fine, it's just killing me that I can't get this thing to do something. Oh yeah, the CD drive will not spool up with an install disc or any other disc in it. So it will NOT boot from a CD.

RAM? Logic Board? Voodoo?? Anyone, anyone?? Please ??

Thank you,
Tom

[Cold Warrior]

What version of OS X are you trying to install? The latest that one can use is 10.4.11, but not Leopard.

Also, are you using the OS X disc that came with your G5 or another disc?

Do you have OS 9.x lying around? It might be worth trying that one.

[Madison]

I've been trying to install 10.3.9 on it. I guess I could try OS 9...

Thanks,
Tom

[Cold Warrior]

If you're trying the version from your G5's restore disc, it's likely that it doesn't include components for your iBook.

A retail version of OS 9 or retail OS X may work better.

You could also try installing it while in FW target disk mode like you mentioned, then boot your G5 from that. Now install a combo updater to the latest 10.3.x release. This may include any-computer files.