[Chezedog]

Have an ol' iBook G4 1.2 GHz PPC G4. 512 MB DDR SDRAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11

It takes about a week to start up, so I was keen to format the HD and re-install Tiger.
I can get it into Target Disk mode, but none of the other Macs see it.
It won't startup from a CD, even if I hold the C key down during startup.
External HDs attached via Firewire do not appear on the Desktop.
External HDs attached via USB appear, but are not an option in Startup Disk.

I've even burned a Debian Linux netinstall CD, just to reformat, but it still won't startup from a CD.

All I do with this mac is watch videos while working the treadmill, so it ain't the end of the world if it's a dead boy... but I am curious as to what's going on, and I'm out of ideas as far as Nuking the HD goes.

WTF?

[Waragainstsleep]

Aside from the refusal to boot from CD, it sounds like your firewire bus is blown. Does it list any info under firewire in the system profile?

Otherwise maybe your disk is just screwed. Fire up Disk Utility and run repair, see if you get any massive errors. I've seen disk failure knock out booting from optical before now. Though that was mostly on MacBooks and they didn't boot from their knackered boot drives.

[Chezedog]

All System Profiler has to say about firewire is this:

Firewire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec

I have repaired disk permissions several times - Disk utility had nothing important to report.

[Spheric Harlot]

Verify the disk.

But honestly, my money is on the disk dying.

Also, the G4 iBooks did not boot from USB.

[Chezedog]

[Waragainstsleep]

Firewire looks ok from that. Its when it says No information available it usually means it gone. Or something in red text.

[Chezedog]

Now I get this every time:



Should I try to remove/replace the HD?

[JaimesBeam]

Actually you can boot an iBook G4 from (some) USB disks or Flash drives.

The short story is to Boot in Open Firmware, "devalias", look for "ud", and
"setenv boot-device ud:<disknumber\\:tbxi".

I have seen a series of iBook 1.33 Ghz G4's with bad built-in wireless
(Airport/Bluetooth) cards/slots. It's often the card slot that is bad, rather
then the card, so you have to use an external USB wireless dongle. Oddly
they seem to also have the 'Bad Firewire' problem as well. With anything in
internal wireless slot, they won't boot, or will panic dump, or give the
multi-lingual 'you need to reboot' error.

I don't know why the firewire goes bad; I don't know how close the Firewire and wireless are on the logic board.

Thanks, Jim.

[Waragainstsleep]

I never noticed a correlation between firewire and wifi failing on iBooks. Firewire usually fails due to a bad peripheral being connected and blowing the controller chip.

The airport slots tend to come unsoldered from the board which is why they fail so often.

[amazing]

Just a couple months ago I brought a 12" iBook up to speed so here's some suggestions.

Maybe at some point someone locked the firmware, which would prevent starting up from the CD drive??? If so, adding or subtracting from the RAM will unlock the firmware (I think you have 256 on the MB and a 256 chip. Remove the chip and attempt to start up off the MB. Maybe the CD drive will work.)

As for the firewire, sometimes if it can be revived: have you reset the PRAM: be sure to hold down the keys thru at least 4 restarts, to clear everything out. After that, reset the PMU (see below).

And lastly, if the firewire can be revived, try starting up in firewire target disk mode to see if the iBook can be seen from a second Mac.

Resetting PRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

You should also try resetting the PMU,

iBook (16 VRAM)
iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM)
iBook (14.1 LCD 32 VRAM)
iBook (32 VRAM)
iBook (Opaque 16 VRAM)
iBook (Early 2003)
iBook (800 MHz 32 VRAM)
iBook (900 MHz 32 VRAM)
iBook (14.1 LCD 900 MHz 32 VRAM)
iBook G4
iBook G4 (Early 2004)
iBook G4 (Late 2004)
iBook G4 (Mid 2005)

For iBook (16 VRAM) and later models of iBook, there is no physical reset button.

If the computer is on, turn it off.
Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-Power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes.
Wait 5 seconds.
Press the Power button to restart the iBook computer.