iBook G3 dual USB won't boot

M

mickmac

Registered
Hi, I'm new here and this is my first post. I'd appreciate any assistance you might give me.
I purchased this iBook G3 used and it won't boot. Symptoms:

~Everything is extremely slow- blank white screen, wait, Apple logo, wait, circle beneath, wait, finally 'prohibited' (no smoking sign)
~It won't boot from CD, initial spinup then nothing, eventually Apple logo, etc
~Won't enter Safe Mode
~Won't boot from an external firewire drive (known to be working). I see screen to choose OS, wait, eventually shows OSX internal drive but not the external, wait a long time to get to the cursor, try to start, back to Apple logo etc

I do hear the startup chime when I turn it on, and I do hear a small amount of disk activity at times. I put in more memory, no difference.

Any information and suggestions would be appreciated. I'm thinking maybe a bad logic board? With a funky HD, I'm thinking that it could still start from an OS CD or an external drive- but i've been wrong before.

Thanks,
Michael

iBook G3 dual USB, 380MB, 10GB, OSX (not sure which version), no peripherals attached.
 
Sounds like you have the 500MHz, you should consider upgrading your ram to 640MB, and upgrading your hard drive, the 10 gigabyte hd from the ibooks, is a 4200 RPM, so upgrading to a bigger and fast hard drive wouldn't hurt. What version of OS X are you running? Those shipped with 10.2 jaguar correct?

Try booting out of open firmware.

When you first press the power button, immediately press ( Command alt O F )
it will bring you to a white screen, that will give you bios info ect.

type mac-boot

and see if that gets you any further, you can also reset your nvram which may help, consider doing a PRAM reset. In open firmware:
reset-nvram
reset-all
Press enter after each and "ok" will be displayed, after you type reset-all your mac will restart.

To do a PRAM reset press the power button and immediately press command alt P R
 
Oh sorry, i just realized you said you weren't sure which version. My mistake

:)

Let me know when you've tried those steps
 
Hi Jesse,

Thanks for the reply and the suggestions. I wasn't online for two days, so I apologize for not getting back sooner.

Your suggestion to upgrade the hard drive sounds really good right now because I've found that the HD is definitely A problem, if not the entire problem: I left the iBook on for a long time, at the screen where you can choose your HD/OS by holding OPTION at startup. Eventually, after a long while, I was given HD/OS options, and all of the choices were on my external drive- the internal drive didn't show up at all. So I booted from the external drive, and the internal drive didn't show up on the desktop, nor when I used disk utility. So it appears that it's definitely time for a new drive!

Thanks!
Michael
 
Yep, that sound like it would be your problem. Taking the hard drives out on the iBook's is actually really easy. But ill provide a link to a guide.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/iBook-G3-12-Inch-Hard-Drive-Replacement/131/1

You know i actually had this same problem, when i tried to install a hard drive i bought off ebay, If i had the drive in, and tried to boot from my install DVD, it would hang on a plain white screen, for a few minutes, and then switch to the finder file check, if unplugged the hard drive, it would boot just fine.

:/ ?

Well anyway, good luck
 
Those 'fixit' guides are great, I'm thinking of getting the toolkit they offer. Maybe for YOU the removal is easy- I guess I'll have to do a few of them to get comfortable with it. Dare I say it- PC laptop HD's are a piece of cake compared to iBooks. Oh well!

Thanks again,
Mike
 
No no, it's pretty straight forward. The only part you'll want to be careful with, after you take off your palmrest and bottom case, theres a metal heat shield or something like that, once you get that off, your going to want to be care full with the hard drive ribbon, because it connects to the cd drive, hard drive, and the main board, so there isn't a whole lot of play with it. So disconnect it from the mobo first, then hard drive.

:)
 
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