iBook G4

[dawozman1]

I have an old iBook G4 and for the past year it has been sitting in its case unused. The original problem was the "logic board failure" which I found today there was a fix to the issue that caused the iBook to be unusable.

Today I got it back on to start backing up all of my data I thought I lost before.

There is a new issue, the hard drive clicking which in my searches is a sign of impending doom for my HD.

Which brings me to my question:

I cant boot to a CD right now because of some problems when it boots up so,

Is there a way to boot from a Ubuntu or other linux distro from a CD if the hd of the mac is removed?

Thanks

[mkvnmtr]

Try to give a little more information about why you can't boot from a disk. On my Ibook G4 I had trouble at first booting 8.04.1 at first. Then I found the secret formula here on this forum and it was easy. The Ibook G4 is worth spending a little money on to put in a new hard drive. Or you can probably run it from a firewire conected drive.

[dawozman1]

When I power up my computer i hear the "boing" noise that goes along with the usual power up, then the hard drive starts making this clicking noise and just sits at the apple logo forever. If I try to boot from a cd it completely ignores it and sems like it is trying to boot from the HD, which results in the clicking noise and no bootup.

If I were to run it from a firewire connected device how would i go about getting it to boot from that?

thanks

[mkvnmtr]

When you try to boot from the disk do you press down the "c" key? Another method is to hold down the option key. I keep the option key pressed down until the icons come up to give me a choice which os to use. Then you have to wait a little longer for it to read the disk. Click on the Linux icon and it should begin to load the disk. If this works you should be good to go. If it begins to load and then goes to a black screen and does nothing more you will have to turn it off with the power button and start over. I won't explain how yet lets see if you can load the disk. As for running from a firewire disk I don't know how but I believe if you get it installed it will boot. You might have to install from another unit if you can't use your hard drive.

[dawozman1]

if i try to boot with the "c" key , i get the apple screen forever and it does nothing. if i booth with the option key i get a screen that looks like this....
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x282/mwozniak07/Photo1.jpg

[dawozman1]

I was finally able to get it to boot from the OS X install DVD but it said "OS X cannot be installed on this computer" Then I opened the disc utility and it brings up the optical drive but doesn't show any hard drive. has my HD died?

[mkvnmtr]

Sounds like your hard drive is bad. That screen should have 2 icons one apple and one linux. I have to think that is should boot Ubuntu and work from the disk. How much memory do you have? My Ibook did not come with enough to install. I had added 1Gb. If the icon doesn't come up I don't know what to tell you. If the OSX disk can boot then the linux disk should boot. Did you check your disk? Or try to burn another one. Whjat are you burning on a Mac? Are you burning an image and not just copying to the disk?

[dawozman1]

Ill try to get it to boot fro the disk again. It is a disk with the image, that ive used to boot and install linux on about 4 other computers, so it should be no different, plus ive tried cds of distros I have and they havent worked yet, i guess i kan keep trying.

the screen shows the folder flashing with the question mark now, bye bye hard drive.

[boron]

I believe Puppy Linux can run entirely in as little as 32 Mb of RAM
see http://www.puppylinux.org/home/overview.
try it and see.

[mkvnmtr]

Well we know your disk is good. We know your machine will boot from the Mac disk. Use the option key and hold it down till you get mad a me. As I remember The arrows came up and then after a good while the icons came up. Then I had to wait while the little circle the ing was spinning before I could click on the icon. Seemed like a long time, probably just a minute or so.

[dawozman1]

I downloaded the puppy dog distro but it wouldnt boot from the disk. Then i tried 3 or 4 of the other distros i have on disks that have worked on other computers. So I popped the mac OS X install dvd back in and it will boot from that. So all I can do is boot to my mac install DVD that wont recognize a hard drive. any ideas?

[mkvnmtr]

What distro are you using 8.04.1? I am really out of ideas. The disk you are using is for Mac right. If not it won't boot. Mac ppc 32 bit is what we use. If it is not you can find the download in the second thread of this apple forum. Other than that I am out of ideas.