[ValVashon]

Patient:

Clamshell iBook, 366 G3 with a dying 12 gb hard drive partitioned 3 ways- OS 9; OS X (10.2.8) and one with the rest of the space. At some point in the past I was able to get OS 10.2.8 and OS 9.2 or something close to those loaded from the original retail CD's. Computer worked well for a while, then started experiencing erratic behavior, such as freeze ups and loss of internet access. Running Disk Utility from the boot disc wouldn't always get the job done, so I purchased Norton System Works 3.0 (terrible choice, I know) to try to fix it. I would get two regular major errors; something about a node being corrupted or something like that. Norton would always fix it for a while, then the problems would come back. At some point it wouldn't boot from the OS X Jaguar CD any more; the drive would be very noisy and it would boot into open firmware. Recently purchased 10.3 Panther discs; it will not boot from that disc either. Have tried holding the C key down; it either ignores the disc or boots into OF; when option booting it either ignores the OS X disc or shows it and boots into OF.

Computer always boots properly from OS 9 and Norton disc.

I have tried to network boot but can't get it to see the Panther disc in the new iMac, even when they are directly connected.

How will I get Panther on the new hard drive that will be purchased? Do these problems have something to do with the pretty corrupted software currently on the hard drive? Should I try making a copy of the Panther disc and booting from that? How can I network boot and can I use that to load the OS on to a new hard drive?

Val

P.S.- I just noticed that both the Panther and Jag discs come from "Zomax" in Canada. The OS 9 disc comes from "JVC" in USA and the Norton disc comes from "WEA". Is a drive that will not read discs from a certain manufacturer slowly dying? I'm really not interested in buying a CD drive as well as a new hard drive.

[mfbernstein]

Sounds to me that you have a dodgy CD drive.

If you have a firewire cable, you can use your new iMac as a CD drive. Put your Panther CD in the iMac. Then boot into Firewire Target Disk mode (hold T while booting). Then connect the iMac to the iBook via Firewire, and boot holding down the option key. The iBook should see the CD in the iMac. From here you ought to be able to install easily. This ought to work with OS 9 too.

If this doesn't work (the iBook won't boot from the iMac's CD), then I'd begin to suspect motherboard issues.

[ValVashon]

This clamshell does not have a firewire port, otherwise I would have tried that. I thought I could get it to boot by connecting it to the iMac via an ethernet cable, but "Network Booting" is just an idea, not something that actually works as far as I have been able to discover.

Val

[bund]

When booting into Open firmware does it show any message which will help us analysing your problem ?

For example: When you see a default catch=XXXX XXXXX error message it it possible that you RAM stick
underneath the keyboard is defective.
A corrupted RAM ends in freezes, corrupted data on the harddisk, bootup failures and so on.

So it may be a good idea to pull the RAM stick out and try to boot without...........

[mfbernstein]

Oh, you have the original 366, not the 'SE' model. My bad.

Netbooting is a pain. That said, here's at least one method to try it.

[ValVashon]

Took the memory stick out (I was getting a "default catch code" and now the computer is stuck in the "option boot" mode- it shows OS X, OS 9 and the installer cd as booting options, but won't boot from the CD, it just goes back to a scan of the possible startup discs. Will startup from the OS X partition at that point. Won't startup holding down the C key either; it goes into ? folder and then boots from OS 9. In OS 9, the OS X install disc is greyed out, like it is not an option. This was happening before I took the memory stick out, too.

64 mb of built in memory may not be enough to start this thing up off a disc; I have some other, smaller (128?) sticks that I can put in there to increase the memory. Also, my OS X partition is really full, almost up to the limit. I will try to delete some stuff and hope that helps.

That said, will a drive such as this:

eBay: Apple iBook G3 CD-ROM drive part # CRN-8245B (item 200094077402 end time Apr-03-07 06:23:42 PDT)

Presumably from a snow type iBook work? I'm not concerned about looks right now, just the ability to boot. From what I know all laptop drives plug in and mount the same. Plus the price is right on this one- 99 cents plus $5 shipping.

Val

P.S.- thanks for the info about the NetBoot Server. Sound complicated but I am willing to try it when I don't have a 2 year old on my lap.

[bund]

I remember that the white G3 iBook CDROM drive is configured as SLAVE (it uses the same cable as the HD) but your Clamshell needs a drive that is MASTER, so it won't work.

Take a look at your OSX 10.3 CD, if it is a grey one, it belongs to a different Apple Computer model and won't boot in your Clamshell.
The panther CD that will boot is black.
The same with OS9: If it is a grey one it is from a newer model ans won't fit, you will need a white disk with a big 9 on it to boot from.

Cleaning the lens of the CD drive will be a good idea, when the CD tray pops out you will see the lens.
Take a Q-tip and a drop of pure alcohol (i use isopropanol) and wipe it clean.

You can use of 128 MB or 256MB stick to run Panther, it needs a minimum of 128MB RAM.

Edit: The iBook came with a grey 2 CD OS9 set, a iBook Software installation, and a grey Software Restore CD, neither G3 nor G4 is written down on them, only iBook.

[ValVashon]

These are all retail versions of the software in question. That said, I just reset the NVRAM via the open firmware commands and had it boot from the CD drive! Just one thing- it still has the old hard drive in it. Oh, well, maybe there will be enough room. Or at least I can run disk utility. Hey, if it started up once, it should do it again sometime in the future, right?

Val

(p.s.- this is all with the 256 mb memory stick removed and a 64 mb memory stick installled)

[ValVashon]

Tried to run disk utility and got the spinning beach ball (for like half an hour). Won't start again from the CD but I'm going to keep trying. Guess its a new cd drive for me.

Val

[msuper69]

Norton & OS X = doom

DO NOT USE ANY FORM OF NORTON UTILITIES ON A Mac RUNNING OS X.

[ValVashon]

Why, thanks for the scolding there "msuper". I'm sure that added bunches to the discussion. If you had read my first post, you would have known that I referred to Norton as a "terrible choice". Any evidence that you had about a disk repaired with Norton Utilities being unable to subsequently boot from an OS X installation CD would have been much more helpful.

Val

[mfbernstein]

While none are quite as good a deal as the drive you pointed out above (I sure wish I'd seen that when my dual-USB iBook was on the fritz), there seem to be a number of Clamshell CD drives on eBay. You might be able to find a drive too for cheap... I guess it depends how much you want to invest in this project.

Good luck with 2-year old!

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by ValVashon 

Why, thanks for the scolding there "msuper". I'm sure that added bunches to the discussion. If you had read my first post, you would have known that I referred to Norton as a "terrible choice". Any evidence that you had about a disk repaired with Norton Utilities being unable to subsequently boot from an OS X installation CD would have been much more helpful.

Val

There's no need to get at him -- Norton really is a bad thing to use on OSX, and it can't be stated enough! As for evidence, it's common knowledge from the MacOS 10.0/10.1 era.

[arcticmac]

FYI, netbooting requires a netboot server to be running on the network. I understand that such a server can be run from Mac OS X Server, and there are options available for various other OSes, but the standard client version of Mac OS X does not have a netboot server in it.

Just for the record...

[Tsilou B.]

You can boot in OS 9, right? And the CD drive does see the Mac OS X install CD while you're in OS 9? Then you can install Mac OS X on a new hard drive like that:

1.) Partition the new drive and install OS 9 on the new drive
2.) Boot OS 9 from the hard drive
3.) Download XPostFacto
4.) Launch XPostFacto and insert the 10.3 install CD
5.) Double-click the install CD that appears in the XPostFacto window. An information window should be displayed where you can select a "Helper drive" (Do not use the "Helper drive" menu in the main window. You really need the window that appears after double-clicking the icon of the Install CD in the main window.)
6.) Select your new OS X partition as the helper drive.
7.) Click "OK", then click "Install from CD/DVD" and confirm it. (Should your Mac eject the CD, put it back in immediately.)

This should work even if your Mac doesn't boot from the OS X install CD (and even though XPostFacto isn't normally needed for your iBook and OS X 10.3).

[ValVashon]

Tried this with the existing bad hard drive. Got pretty far the first try and then I think the disc was scratched (have since had it polished) which caused the install to hang. Long story short, the 10.2 boot partition got completely hosed and I had to boot into 9 and delete a bunch of system files and leave the users alone. Then I was able to install 10.2 again (with or without the help of XPostFacto, I don't remember) which is where I am now. Tried to install 10.3 again and it doesn't work- I don't think that XPF is the problem; it's the fact that the drive sounds like I have tossed the install CD's in a blender. Hopefully when I open this thing up I can plug in my loose iMac original drive, install from that and then put the thing back together.

Val

Update: Pulled clamshell apart and installed new 80gb hard drive. Pulled cable from clamshell Cd rom drive and used it to connect stock drive that came from Bondi iMac. Install went perfectly, so the problem was obviously the old drive, which is going back in there as soon as everything is loaded. It does read some discs, just not the OS X install discs. Thanks for the idea of XPostFacto, but I think the CD rom drive is just too shot to make this work, and I didn't want to take the chance of buttoning the thing back up and have it not work.