I book g4 fuzzy square on load up

Question

i have been given a ibook g4 12.1 1.33ghz with 512mb of ram that at first when you turned it on you got the ? and smily face folder i though no osx installed i put my panther cd in the slot drive and nothing it would not even eject either so i opened up the ibook to take the drive out and retrive my cd, where i found no hard drive installed **** i thought or words to that effect, after doing some digging on the internet i found that i could connect the ibook by target disk mode to my other mac which i have never done before, anyway i have managed to install panther on the ibook on a 40gb hard drive or i thought i had, when i start the ibook up it loads the first apple screen then it turns to a fuzzy square and nothing else happens, i have connected the two macs back up by TDM and i can see the files on the ibook so it looks like they are there, did i do anything wrong while in TDM as when i came to eject the ibook it said still in use so i turned the host one off then the ibook then took out the firewire, any help on this will be very welcome as my very limited knowledge on macs has now run out a long time ago

Answer 1

The issue, as you describe it, is rather odd; but not unheard of
to get a computer that someone has taken parts out of, then a
period of time goes by, and someone else gets it...
And finds something missing. To find there is no optical drive
inside a computer after inserting the system disc, is a surprise.
When dealing with FireWire Target Disk Mode, and one computer
is seen by the other as a source and the other as a peripheral,
care has to be taken when unmounting the one used as CD drive
component (when the normally booted computer has none) and
certain protocols have to be followed so damage to the working
computer's hard disk drive (data, etc) won't happen.
Between the possibility of not having the correct OS X disc set
for the computer lacking an internal optical drive, remains likely.
However, given the circumstances and use of FW Target Disk
Mode to try and use the (perhaps incorrect) system disc in one
Mac from the other attached computer, adds more intrigue.
If you had a FireWire externally enclosed optical drive, equal to
the Apple's combo or superdrive, that could be used to correctly
boot the Mac now lacking an optical drive, then you could test
just the computer with this latest issue you note.
There could be other hardware damages to the computer which
lacks an optical drive; to know why it was removed would help.
If the computer had other issues and this part was taken out to
fix some other computer, that would mean something. Or, if the
optical drive failed, why wasn't it replaced, with the case opened?
With an original working optical drive and the factory included
iBook software packet with bootable restore-installer discs, an
Apple Hardware Test on the disc set could be used to test the
rest of the iBook to see if something else is wrong with it.
Having to troubleshoot and patch the unit, in order to test it,
is a harder task; since each step could be ambiguous.
Sorry to say, I didn't read in detail this matter of how additional
problems occurred probably (or not) as a result of using FW TDM
and connecting the computer to another, in order to use an optical
drive. Had I not been rushed and interfered with at that time, I may
have done a better job in my earlier attempt at a reply; & I'm sorry.
The symptom in your thread's title could be due to some graphic
processor failure; but having the circumstances better explained
on how this relates to the main attempts with Target Disk Mode
should be made more clear. A better separation of cause & effect.
What is your main computer that was used in this FireWire TDM
exercise? Is it a PPC Mac or an Intel-based Mac? I see a mention
of an "imac USB2" in the signature line; so was the OS X 10.3 disc
one from that computer? - Details are everything in this matter...
USB2.0 is no definition, since that standard includes current iMacs.
Sometimes, it is better to own a giraffe...
Good luck & happy computing!