Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[wove]

I purchased a lot of four Powerbook G4s for parts only. Three of units are little more than a pile of pieces with one actually looking very decent.

I started with the worst of the lot a 15 inch PowerBook G4 1.5GHz. The case had been opened with a putty knife/pry bar folding the palm rest over the keyboard so they could use the same pry bar to remove the hard drive.

Oddly it “bongs” and powers on, but stops at looking for a bootable volume. The combo drive spins up but does not read any disk inserted and neither does it spit them back out. The hard drive cable was missing, but I found one from a different unit that works but is the wrong shape to allow a hard drive to fit into the bay. I also found an old apple laptop super drive that works.

With the hard drive installed the machine booted up to Morph OS. Not what I was looking for, but with Morph OS I was able to see that all the bits on the Powerbook are functioning. Amazing that the unit can suffer so much destruction and remain functional.

I tried booting from the Unsupported OS9 CD I download from MacOS9Lives, but it does not boot the machine. I have not read through the forum to see what else might be involved in getting OS 9 installed.

I tend to be more mechanic than computer person. I really just like fixing things. I will finish disassembling the unit, do my best to pound out the dents and getting it all back together. Then start on the next one.

[aBc]

“I tend to be more mechanic than computer person. I really just like fixing things.” -Wove

Nobody ‘round here like that. 

Have you access to an external Firewire drive (or maybe bootable USB) with various bootable Operating Systems? (A handy thing to have when dealing with such no-boot scenarios.) In the case of this 15 inch PowerBook G4 1.5GHz… a Panther (external) 10.3 bootable partition might be of some use / interest to you?

Certainly determine that it can be booted in such a manner first - before dealing with the cosmetic appearance concerns and the time it often requires to do those tasks. I’ve several such restored “good looking machines” that were never resurrected to actual full function. Then I also have machines that look like total hell, but continue to function near flawlessly.

But, maybe see if you can find a version of AHT (v.1.2.3?) or ASD (ASD-263?) for that PowerBook, to possibly clue you in on whatever hardware troubles it might actually already have. That is, if it will boot from such an AHT or ASD disc.

Have fun.

[wove]

Thanks for the info, but booting via Firewire and Optical media is not a problem. The unit boots Panther, Tiger and Leopard OS X and it also boots MorphOS and Adelie Linux. But it does not boot using a CD of the MacOS9 for unsupported Macs.

Right now the machine is splayed out over my bench using a collection of stuff not specific to this laptop. Meaning I can not reassemble the machine with the components I have hooked up to it. The "superdrive" is from something newer, perhaps an iMac, the cable connectors are from assorted other laptops and while they work electrically, they do not  fit this specific laptop.

I put in 2GB of RAM, which OS Xes recognize (would that prevent booting into OS9?). The bent and twisted keyboard is fully functional. The trackpad cage has been tore loose from the palm rest yet functions as expected. The system profiler sees everything I would expect it to see.

I have been wrenching on Mac computers since the 80s and I made enough spare income from Apple's fragile laptops from the late nineties and early oughts to put my youngest through college. I gather many make music on the Ti laptop. All I ever made from it was money repairing it or maybe it should be

[aBc]

Have you tried booting (and mounting) that Unsupported Installer
disc via Open Firmware: boot cd:,\\:tbxi ? Just a thought.

[wove]

I have not tried that yet. I need to read through the forum posts that cover the firmware aspects. With the CD in the drive and booting with the "C" key held down, the drive spins up for about a minute, then stops and spits the CD out. Booting with the CD in and holding down option, shows the CD volume and it is selectable to boot from. When selected one can hears the heads move a couple times. The CD settles into just spinning and nothing more happens and after perhaps ten minutes I just shut it down. I may burn another copy in case my first burn is just a coaster.

The case for  the unit is a real mess, and the parts I used to get it working are from machines other than the fifteen inch unit, so I am not seeing a clear way forward to turn the "parts only" machine into useable laptop.

[aBc]

Oh yes, coasters galore around here in the last 20 years!
Usually I suspect my burns first and then re-burn at slow speed.

Can you test boot or mount on any other machine with that disc?

[ssp3]

The unit boots Panther, Tiger and Leopard OS X and it also boots MorphOS and Adelie Linux. But it does not boot using a CD of the MacOS9 for unsupported Macs.

wove, there are two 15" PowerBook G4 models out there:
A1095 - older, 1.33 and 1.5 GHz, ID = PowerBook5,4
A1106 - newer, 1.5 GHz, ID = PowerBook5,6

IIRC, neither will boot off of 'Unsupported' CD available from here 'as is'. You need to go into OpenFirmware or use custom ROM file.
You can read about Graystash's adventures with 5,6 model in this thread: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=4781.0

My own 15" 1.33 GHz A1095 IS running OS9 with the custom ROM that I made. Brightness control in OS9 Monitors CP still doesn't work though.

[wove]

Just a post to finish up. Thanks to @ssp3 and @aBc for the useful advice and information. The weather is finally turning nice and it has become time for gardening and outdoor adventures, so I have laid the parts out in a flat box along with various notes and put the 15" off to the side for a rainy day or perhaps even a project for next winter.

I do not know anything about making custom ROMs so I am pretty sure I will get nowhere going down that path. It would have been interesting to see the machine boot into OS 9 since it has been a couple decades since I had an OS 9 based laptop.