Be Excellent To Each Other

Got this G3 iBook, which is knacked. The hard drive's bollocksed on it, you just get a question mark. I have the two install disks for OSX and an enormous Lacie firewire drive, upon which I want to install the OSX. How do I make it go?


I will get a replacement internal hdd for it in a few weeks when I can afford one, even though that will involve dismantling the entire fucking laptop because everything they've told you about Apple being able to design good laptops is a lie. In the interim, wanna get this firewire drive usable for it.

You can boot it from the install disk by holding down 'c' when you start it up. Connect the firewire drive, then install Mac OS on that.

Or clone the hard drive from another Mac (must be an older Power PC/Pre Intel mac) using Carbon Copy Cloner onto the firewire drive and boot from that.

Edit - you will have to format the firewire drive if it isn't already formatted in Mac format for the Mac to see it.

Are they just bog standard IDE drives?
I'm sure I've got one lying around you can have for postage costs.

Cheers, Z - though I may have found one here as well, will let you know.

Aye, got a spare drive, need a different screwdriver to the one the guide said I'd need. I may not get that far though, sticking in OSX and booting with C held down simply takes me to a screen with an apple on it and a spinning circle underneath. Disk is readable on other devices. Booting with D held brings up the correct name of the disk in the menu that appears (OSX Install Disc 1) but then selecting it just gives me apple logo with spinny thing underneath.

Is the Mac OS disc a CD or DVD? Is the drive in the Mac a DVD drive? Are you releasing the C key when the Apple logo appears? Starting up with the option key (alt) will allow you to select from available bootable discs, so the install disc will show up if so.

You might be able to copy the contents of the install disc to a memory stick and boot from that.

Off topic, what size is this iBook? My 12" G4 is now all but dead (fucked hard drive, fucked main board) but the battery might be of interest to you...

Might try that memory stick option. The disc is recognised, it just sits on the apple logo, little wheel spinning after that, though.

Meaty - its not a 12" model, I don't think. Certainly it is as heavy as all fuck, though.

Well they did stop making G3 iBooks in 2003.

Hope you can get it up and running again.

There's no reason at all I should have to dismantle the entire machine to replace a hard drive. All my previous laptop have had fully accessible ones. Every manufacturer. Except Apple. Bloody, sodding Apple.

(sent from my 3rd gen 64gb iPad)

Get a desktop.

I know the G4 iBooks were easier to work with to a degree, just a case of popping the keyboard out to fit memory upgrades and wifi cards from what I remember when working on Mrs Z's laptop.

Can't remember how tough it is to replace a HD on them though as I've never had call to do it.

On my iBook, it was quite involved -- is this the one you have?

It's a lot easier on most modern Macs though. On my MacBook Pro, it's under a flap on the bottom next to the battery. Takes a couple of minutes on either of those. On the newer Unibody MacBook Pros, it's a bite harder, but still pretty easy overall.

And it's mostly modern Macs -- certainly the Unibody era machines -- that you'll hear most plaudits directed at. Not those old plastic bodies iBooks.

It's almost exactly that complicated, yes. I have the little hd here ready to swap in, but I'm not going into town to get a screwdriver for it until I know the effing osx disks are going to work. Mr bloke whose computer and discs it is is yet to get back to me.

Pointlessly not proper screw heads is another wilful act of arch cuntery and I hold the glowing, evil husk of Steve Jobs personally responsible.

Stalemate!

WTF? It's a T8 Torx, which is a perfectly standard forty five year old head type with significant technical advantages over Phillips heads.

If you had a model RC car, you'd have a Torx driver. Also, the front winch is held onto my Tomcat with Torx bolts (but I suspect these are bigger and considerably more load-bearing than the ones in your computer. Or on a model car).

HTH!

I've worked on several cars that were almost entirely held together with Torx screws, including my own.

I've a full range of Torrx drivers, and the guide here reckons such a thing will do for the 10 and 20mm hex screws in the top photo:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing- ... rive/130/5

They won't, I can assure you. And neither will the 2mm hex I've been directed to use by the same site. Whatever the significant technical advantages, a phillips head screw would have been open by now, and they are hardly failing on all my other devices which use them. I've a shitload of tools here that open everything else and I just want to open a laptop and put a replacement hdd in it and I can't because they've got to be special and different.

I've had a little look into making a bootable OSX usb stick as well, and it seem this would be a piece of piss if I already had a Mac, though that would negate the need for me to get this one running in the first place. I'm beginning to think the cd drive might be a bit knacked as well now. Is there a way of making a mac bootable usb on windows and copying the files from the osx disc over to it?

Allen keys are even more normal than Torx, surely?

Edit -- I definitely opened that part of my own iBook multiple times, and I don't remember needing anything exotic to do so.

These must not be the typical screws then. They do look like small hex heads but after using all the allen keys on my cycle repair kit, my general all purpose toolkit, my extremely large epic screwdriver kit and my handier to carry about halfords torx and hex 29 piece screwdriver head set, I can't find a single one that opens these little screws. In all cases, the torx is ineffective and the smallest one rattles around like an unsatisfactory penis in a lady whilst the next size up in any kit is too big. Like my penis, in a lady.

Either the owner of this laptop has ground his screw heads to the point of unusability or they're not the proper ones.

Uh-oh. It's not uncommon for idiots to force Phillips screwdriver's into them and chew them to bits.

Yeah, he was probably following a guide on the internet which recommended using Torx bits for hex screws. Either that or they are ok and you just don't have the right size hex bit.

This raises the unpalatable question about how many non-lady things your penis has been in where it wasn't too big.

Harlem.

Four years I lived in Wales, man.

Anyway, I'm making a short film about it.

*examines fucked G4*

Just really small Allen keys. I have two sets containing one that fits, for when I did my bodge repair to the GPU.

The hex screws (not torx) in my first gen Intel iMac were all non metric sizes, which proper pissed me off at the time.

Maybe try a small spot of super glue on the tip of your Torx driver. It's brittle enough to break off afterwards, and easy to remove if it doesn't work with nail polish remover.

Worth a shot.

I'm checking with the guy to see if he's got some screwdriver that works properly.