Help Newbie here, ibook G3 700mhz wont boot !

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Help Newbie here, ibook G3 700mhz wont boot !

Hi everyone, I came across a threat that was almost identical to my issue, but I don't know if the user solved it. I got a free ibook G3 dual usb, 700Mhz, 256MB RAM with a Superdrive. I was told it had Panther (no idea which 10.x.x) on it but my friend also said he thinks it has a faulty logic board thats why he gave it up. I have read about logic board errors and they seem to only affect the screen, the screen on my ibook is fine the issue is as follows.

When I turn the ibook on it simply displays the Finder Icon with an alternating question mark. I have OS X 10.4 DVDS and when I place them in the drive, the superdrive blinks and spins, even when I restart and press 'C' it does not load. I have tried holding down 'OPTION' but all I see if a refresh icon and a forward arrow, none of which do anything.

My questions are;
1 are these symptoms logic board related?
2 i am guessing even if the hard drive were to be broken the ibook should still begin to install from the optical drive, then tell me the HD is not present..or is this false?
3 how can i boot up and find out the settings for the hard drive and optical drive such as one can do on a PC in the bios
4 would it be possible to boot from an external firewire DVD drive?

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Re: Help Newbie here, ibook G3 700mhz wont boot !

1 are these symptoms logic board related?

No. It's searching for a System folder from which to boot, and not finding one.

2 i am guessing even if the hard drive were to be broken the ibook should still begin to install from the optical drive, then tell me the HD is not present..or is this false?

That depends. Are your Tiger discs made for a specific machine (iMac, Power Mac G5, eMac, iBook G4)? If so, they will not boot any machine other than the one they were made for. If it's a retail disc, then ...

Are you sure it's a SuperDrive? This was not a stock option on the 700 MHz iBooks: they shipped with either a CD-ROM, a CD-RW, or a Combo drive. Lift the keyboard and check the specs on the sticker that has the serial number. It should tell you whether it shipped with a CD, CD-RW, or Combo, respectively.

Obviously, if you have a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive, you won't be able to boot to a DVD.

3 how can i boot up and find out the settings for the hard drive and optical drive such as one can do on a PC in the bios

Errm, not that I'm aware of, unless it would be in Open Firmware. Anyone else want to jump in here?

4 would it be possible to boot from an external firewire DVD drive?

Most likely, yes, with a few exceptions.

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Thanks CWSMITH for taking the

Thanks CWSMITH for taking the time to reply. Here is what I know. This was from my friend and he said the optical drive is an MCE Technologies 8x slot-loading DVD+R drive, and that everything was working for more than a year with this drive.
In regards to the OS X cds these are from my other friend for MacBook but hers is 5 years newer than mine , so this may pose an issue. The discs themselves say Mac OS X Install Disc 1 (and 2) Disc Version 1.0 2Z691-5796-A. Perhaps you are right and it's not booting from them because these were bundled with her new Macbook.
I am a total MAC newbie and don't know that much, all I know is I am sick of Microsoft software constantly crapping out.
Any suggestions on what I can do? I don't want to buy a retail OS to find out that the hard drive or something else has crapped out...but then again I guess I have to buy one anyways. When I look on the apple store they only seem to sell Tiger, do they no longer sell the older operating systems?

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Re: Thanks CWSMITH for taking the

Thanks CWSMITH for taking the time to reply

No problem. That's why we're here: I answer as many questions as I have time for, in the hope that when I'm stumped, someone will be here to answer my questions too.

Here is what I know. This was from my friend and he said the optical drive is an MCE Technologies 8x slot-loading DVD+R drive, and that everything was working for more than a year with this drive.

Fair enough: the MCE replacement drives are recognized by the machine as if it were installed by Apple, so you should in fact be able to boot to a Tiger DVD.

In regards to the OS X cds these are from my other friend for MacBook but hers is 5 years newer than mine , so this may pose an issue. The discs themselves say Mac OS X Install Disc 1 (and 2) Disc Version 1.0 2Z691-5796-A. Perhaps you are right and it's not booting from them because these were bundled with her new Macbook.

And herein lies the problem: not only is this a machine-specific install DVD (MacBook DVD will not work in a MacBook Pro, a Mac Pro, a Mac mini, or an iMac), but this one is for an Intel-based machine. Your iBook is a PowerPC-based (PPC) machine. Totally different processor and architecture, and requires different code. There is not a Universal Tiger installer that works on both Intel- and PPC-based Macs.

You will need a retail version of Tiger (10.4), available at Apple's website or at your local Apple retailer (independent, Apple store, CompUSA, Circuit City) for $129. You could also use a retail Panther (10.3) install set purchased from eBay, FastMac.com, or others.

However, please note that some online sellers are less scrupulous than others, and may try to sell you a machine-specific installer, so you'd be back at square one. For this reason and others, I'd recommend buying a new Tiger installer in the box from an authorized Apple reseller.

When I look on the apple store they only seem to sell Tiger, do they no longer sell the older operating systems?

Apple doesn't sell their older operating systems, only the current one. For older OSes, you'd be back to third-party sellers and the inherent problems that go with them.

I am a total MAC newbie and don't know that much, all I know is I am sick of Microsoft software constantly crapping out.

I've been there, seen the movie, bought the T-shirt.

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Just a note, the IDE cable co

Just a note, the IDE cable could have come loose inside the machine, causing the machine not to see either drive.

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If it ain't one thing . . .

. . . it's something else, as Roseanne Rosannadanna once pointed out. If you go looking for install disks, check out the lem swaplist. Be specific about machine or ask for a retail version of the OS you want. That's the cheapest best option.

Good luck,

William

www.williamahearn.com

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Ide-conflict

I think your problem is the master/slave settings on the ide-chain.
The original ibook did not ship with a superdrive. So somebody replaced the optical drive with a super drive. The super drives are often set to master on ibooks an I think some ibooks due to two onboards ide-chains. The older ibooks have the harddrive set to master.
So probably in your case both of your drives are set to master.
Some drives have a jumper and some other needs to be flashed with some software on a pc.

But somewhere else on this forum there is a jumpersetting for the apple hartddrives, and it should be possible to set your harddrive to slave if the optical drive does not have a jumper

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