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HELP mac os x on clamshell ibook

Submitted by jman on December 10, 2005 - 11:15pm. PowerPC Macs

I have a clamshell ibook with a non working cd rom dirve and the usb one won't let me install mac os x it just come up with a cirle with a line I have tryed xpostfacto does any one know ather way thanks Smiling

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iantm's picture

Need more info.

Submitted by iantm on December 10, 2005 - 11:28pm.

What series clamshell iBook - is this a 300 mhz blueberry/tangerine, a 366 mhz graphite SE, or one of the firewire models (366 mhz indigo/key lime, 466 mhz graphite/key lime)? What version of OS X are you trying to Install (10.2, 10.3, 10.4)? 10.4 won't natively install on the 300 mhz blueberry/tangerine and 366 mhz graphite Special Editions due to lack of onboard firewire. 10.3 and 10.2 work great on all flavors of clamshell.

xpostfacto will help install 10.4 on the non firewire equipped clamshells. As for USB booting, I don't believe it's possible with OS X. (I've only ever seen firewire being the means of booting from an external device.

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jman's picture

os 10.2

Submitted by jman on December 10, 2005 - 11:33pm.

I am trying to install 10.2 on a blueberry ibook I think wipeing the hd migth fix the issue
but i could be wrong.in os 9.1 the cd it worked some of the time but in os 9.2 it will not work at all i thing it might be a system thing

thank for any tips

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cwsmith's picture

You can't boot from USB

Submitted by cwsmith on December 11, 2005 - 5:16am.

Unfortunately, you can't boot a Mac from a USB drive.

If you had FireWire, you'd be able to boot from a FireWire drive, but of course Blueberry and Tangerine iBooks don't have FireWire (I think the Graphite 466 was the first).

If in fact your CD-ROM problems are due to system errors, try forcing the computer to boot to the OS X installer CD by holding down the "C" key at boot.

If this doesn't work, you may very well have a failing CD-ROM drive, which will need to be replaced before you can proceed.

Good luck!

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aladds's picture

Re: You can't boot from USB

Submitted by aladds on December 11, 2005 - 9:58am.
cwsmith wrote:
Unfortunately, you can't boot a Mac from a USB drive.

Partially true, the iBook clamshells don't boot from USB, but I booted my Pismo from a USB DVD drive to install Mac OS X 10.4 (as my internal DVD drive needed a clean and I couldn't find the cleaner disk).

Anyway, back on topic: You say you are installing 9.2 on it, is it booted from that CD then? If that is the case then your OSX CD is no good, try another one. Also, if the OSX CD is machine specific then it may not work either, try using an official one from a retail box.

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Jon's picture

The iceBooks boot from USB to

Submitted by Jon on December 14, 2005 - 4:10am.

The iceBooks boot from USB too, FWIW.

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jman's picture

i fixed it

Submitted by jman on December 18, 2005 - 6:40pm.

I just swaped hard drives with my powerbook

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coius's picture

Re: The iceBooks boot from USB to

Submitted by coius on December 18, 2005 - 8:06pm.
Jon wrote:
The iceBooks boot from USB too, FWIW.

Not the G4 ones. I know that the DV iMacs were the first, also, the PB G3 (pismo) could boot from USB. Some of the PB G4's could boot, and most of the PM G4's could also boot from USB. But not that you would want to for OS X...

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Clamshell Ibook 300Mhz will boot from USB drive

Submitted by Macsolver on December 16, 2006 - 8:36am.

Clamshell Ibooks will boot from an USB drive, and it provides an easy method of installing OSX 10.4 on ones without Firewire or DVD drive, both which are required by Tiger.

The trick is to boot the Ibook into OS9 first, select the external USB drive in the Startupdisk control panel and restart. The Ibook will slowly boot from the external USB drive. If the USB drive has OSX 10.4.x, this can then be cloned onto the internal HDD using CCC. However there are some requrements:

1. Check the Ibook firmware is the latest.
2. The USB drive must be compatible with OS9. I use a LaCie 300Gb triple interface drive as it is quick to install OSX from my G5 prior to cloning onto the Ibook.
3. The USB drive must be externally powered and "on" before restarting the Ibook.
4. 512Mb Kingston RAM works well and makes Tiger useable on a Clamshell.

Hope this is of help to Tiger upgraders.

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Firmware update supposedly enables USB bootable

Submitted by jdmcz32tt on April 21, 2008 - 11:25pm.

Hi, just a quick note. My 10.2 install CDs include a 9.1-executable utility to update the clamshell iBook's firmware to 4.1.7 (I think? have to check for sure) to enable, among other things, booting from USB. It also helps with network booting. You have to run the firmware update from 9.1 or 9.2. Hope this helps. Unless someone already mentioned this and I missed it, in which case, never mind.

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