Dead 10.5.8 Machine, Good Time Machine Backup Disk
- Thread starter Whitehill
- Start date
Whitehill
Registered
I found a way, but it’s not general at all. I had installed El Capitan in a Parallels virtual machine. After booting it up, it happily ate my old backup. Then I copied everything to a folder on my New machine. All OK.
Whitehill
Registered
How can I tell if the HD is dead? The machine won’t boot up. This is a G4 17” laptop, vintage of 2004! It served me well for many years. Now that I have my ancient files in a usable place, I’ll give it a decent burial with a 13 gun salute.
DeltaMac
Tech
Will the laptop power up into Firewire target boot mode?
Press and release the power button, then hold the T key.
You should see the screen light up, and have ONLY a floating Firewire icon.
If that happens, you can connect through firewire to another Mac. That hard drive should show up on the desktop of that other Mac.
If you get nothing on the screen (and no boot chime, and a PRAM reset doesn't do anything), then the only way to find out if the HD is dead is to remove it. Install in an external case, or another Mac G4 laptop. That kind of surgery can be a big challenge on some older Macs, such as an iBook.
Or, you have the files that you wanted, so you could just call it bad, and be done with it.
(Isn't a 13-gun salute a bit much? I would think a 7-gun salute would be more appropriate as a farewell.... lol )
Press and release the power button, then hold the T key.
You should see the screen light up, and have ONLY a floating Firewire icon.
If that happens, you can connect through firewire to another Mac. That hard drive should show up on the desktop of that other Mac.
If you get nothing on the screen (and no boot chime, and a PRAM reset doesn't do anything), then the only way to find out if the HD is dead is to remove it. Install in an external case, or another Mac G4 laptop. That kind of surgery can be a big challenge on some older Macs, such as an iBook.
Or, you have the files that you wanted, so you could just call it bad, and be done with it.
(Isn't a 13-gun salute a bit much? I would think a 7-gun salute would be more appropriate as a farewell.... lol )
DeltaMac
Tech
Ah, OK, 13 it is
If you don't see anything on the screen - do you get a startup chime? Be sure to try a PRAM reset, letting the boot chime a couple of times before you release the keys.
If you DO get a boot chime, wait a minute or two, then shine a light into the screen, from various angles.
Do you see ANYTHING - icons, menus at the top of the screen, or elements of your login screen, somewhere in the center of the screen? If it is a backlight issue, then you should be able to see something. The screen will be very dim, and certainly not usable in that condition, but it will tell you that the system is booting, just a backlight issue.
With no backlight, even the floating firewire icon in target disk mode would be just barely visible - but because it is a moving icon, and the only item on the screen, it may be easier to spot.
If you don't even get a boot chime, then likely a logic board, particularly if you don't even get a connection light on your power adapter connector.
If you don't see anything on the screen - do you get a startup chime? Be sure to try a PRAM reset, letting the boot chime a couple of times before you release the keys.
If you DO get a boot chime, wait a minute or two, then shine a light into the screen, from various angles.
Do you see ANYTHING - icons, menus at the top of the screen, or elements of your login screen, somewhere in the center of the screen? If it is a backlight issue, then you should be able to see something. The screen will be very dim, and certainly not usable in that condition, but it will tell you that the system is booting, just a backlight issue.
With no backlight, even the floating firewire icon in target disk mode would be just barely visible - but because it is a moving icon, and the only item on the screen, it may be easier to spot.
If you don't even get a boot chime, then likely a logic board, particularly if you don't even get a connection light on your power adapter connector.
Whitehill
Registered
After recovering from turkey-induced coma ...
Resetting PRAM accomplished nothing. But, holding down the power button for about 5 seconds provoked a weird 3 second tone I have never heard before, then the familiar bong, then the gray screen with the Apple in the center! But after a few more secs, white text on a black background, in the upper left, announced system failure and unaligned stack.
2nd experiment. Clicked power button while holding down T key and .. Lo! .. the screen with the moving icon appeared. I suppose I could proceed with this, except ...
How do I connect the laptop (firewire, no thunderbolt) to my iMac (thunderbolt, no firewire)?
Resetting PRAM accomplished nothing. But, holding down the power button for about 5 seconds provoked a weird 3 second tone I have never heard before, then the familiar bong, then the gray screen with the Apple in the center! But after a few more secs, white text on a black background, in the upper left, announced system failure and unaligned stack.
2nd experiment. Clicked power button while holding down T key and .. Lo! .. the screen with the moving icon appeared. I suppose I could proceed with this, except ...
How do I connect the laptop (firewire, no thunderbolt) to my iMac (thunderbolt, no firewire)?
DeltaMac
Tech
The firewire to thunderbolt adapter MIGHT be worth a try.
What happens if you try an open firmware reset?
boot, while holding Option-Command-o-f (that's the letter Oh)
You should get the open firmware screen (a couple of lines of text)
Type reset-nvram then press enter. You should get a response of "OK"
Type set-defaults, and again press enter. Again, you should get an "OK"
Finally, type reset-all, and press enter again. Your PBook should restart.
if you get the same error lines, try reseating your RAM.
That 3 second, weird tone, is your PowerBook trying to boot into a firmware update screen. That's the normal boot for starting a firmware update by holding the power button for several seconds during the initial power on. If a firmware update is set up already, you should get a progress bar, showing the firmware update progress If the firmware update is not in place, then all you should get is the tone, then not much will happen after that. That's all that is happening for you.
The "system failure" and "unaligned stack" might be related to cpu overheating. You COULD try reapplying the CPU heat sink thermal paste. Hard to say if that will really help you, however.
Do you have a copy of the Apple hardware test for your PBook?
On second thought --- unless that PowerBook has sentimental (or collector) value for you, it might be time to just move on, eh?
What happens if you try an open firmware reset?
boot, while holding Option-Command-o-f (that's the letter Oh)
You should get the open firmware screen (a couple of lines of text)
Type reset-nvram then press enter. You should get a response of "OK"
Type set-defaults, and again press enter. Again, you should get an "OK"
Finally, type reset-all, and press enter again. Your PBook should restart.
if you get the same error lines, try reseating your RAM.
That 3 second, weird tone, is your PowerBook trying to boot into a firmware update screen. That's the normal boot for starting a firmware update by holding the power button for several seconds during the initial power on. If a firmware update is set up already, you should get a progress bar, showing the firmware update progress
If the firmware update is not in place, then all you should get is the tone, then not much will happen after that. That's all that is happening for you.The "system failure" and "unaligned stack" might be related to cpu overheating. You COULD try reapplying the CPU heat sink thermal paste. Hard to say if that will really help you, however.
Do you have a copy of the Apple hardware test for your PBook?
On second thought --- unless that PowerBook has sentimental (or collector) value for you, it might be time to just move on, eh?