Member Avatar for Will Gresham

Ok, I have an iBook G3.

I was restoring it to factory with the Software Restore disks which came with the unit as I was planning to move on to a new unit.. But there was a power cut in the middle of the process and the unit shut off. Now, it does not recognise a HD when booting holding option.

It also will not boot from any CD/DVD other than the Apple HW Test disk provided with the unit.. All other disks spin up and then get ejected, on the odd occasion it does not eject, it boots to a icon of a floppy diskette with a flashing ? (Saying that, I did manage to get it to load from the restore disk 1 once, but it just saidit could not mount the image file)

The HW test disk returns no problems
I have reset PRAM multiple times, and reset nvram and all in Open Firmware. I have also reset PMU as a last resort, but no luck :(

Any ideas?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mymonkey1952

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As suggested, try FireWire Target Disk Mode first — it’s the simplest way to get an installer or Disk Utility onto an old iBook when the internal optical path is unreliable. Boot the Mac that has the working optical drive into Target Disk Mode (hold T while it starts), connect it to the iBook with FireWire, then pick the installer volume from the iBook’s Startup Disk and reboot to install or run Disk Utility. Apple’s official Target Disk Mode docs and the community how‑to are good references. (support.apple.com)

If that doesn’t work, force‑boot the iBook from Open Firmware. Boot to the OF prompt (Cmd+Opt+O+F), use devalias / dev / ls to confirm the cd alias, eject/load the disc, then try a forced boot. Example commands:

devalias
eject cd
boot cd:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX
# or, if needed:
boot cd:,\\:tbxi

Those OF tricks are commonly used on PowerPC Macs when the usual C/Option boot keys fail. (lists.debian.org)

If forced boots fail or discs spin then eject, suspect optical hardware or media format issues. Old combo drives often lose DVD or CD read ability (different laser elements and aging/dirty optics); burned discs must be finalised and are best burned at the slowest speed possible. Try a known‑good retail Mac installer DVD (not a machine‑specific restore disc), an external FireWire optical drive, or temporarily remove the iBook HDD and mount it on another Mac to inspect/repair. If the machine’s firmware is out of date it can also affect boot behavior — Boot ROM/firmware updates for iBook G3 models exist and are model specific. (ifixit.com)

Quick checklist (in order): 1) Try Target Disk Mode with a second Mac. 2) Force‑boot from Open Firmware (commands above). 3) Test multiple known‑good retail discs / burned discs (low speed, finalised). 4) Try an external FireWire DVD or swap the optical drive. 5) If all else fails, check/apply the model‑specific Boot ROM/firmware update or remove the HDD and repair it on another machine.

Member Avatar for mymonkey1952

Can you open the the iBook in Firewire mode (hold down the T key while booting)? If you can then you could run disk repairs on that drive or even copy a system folder over. It sounds like you may have damaged the firmware on your Mac and you may need to run that installer again.

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