My iBook G4 is ailing
Hi, yesterday I tried to print an Apple Works 6 word processing document. The first page was good. The others could not be read. Printer is connected via USB. Printer is healthy. No issues printing from MBA Mountain Lion or Acer netbook Win 7. The iBook is running OS 10.3.9. It' an 800MgHz G4 processor.
Today I was reading my file from the iBook screen and typing the text on an MBA. iBook shutsdown or freezes instead of sleeping. On boot the iBook makes a static sound before the chime then boots normally. I can read files. I eventually got an error message in Finder that the date and time is set before 1969 and applications may behave erratically. I reset the time. Still printing is not good.
I repaired permissions and ran MacJanitor yesterday when the printing issue presented.
Do you think a new permeter ram battery may resolve this? My iBook was purchased January 2003. The pram battery had ever been replaced.
I would appreciate any suggestions. I love my old iBook. Not ready to give up on it yet.
Thanks much.
One thing to consider is to reset the PRAM and the PMU after you get the new battery installed.
An easy file check method is to startup in safe mode as It forces a directory check of the startup volume. You may see a progress bar on the screen during this check, and the computer may take longer than usual to complete its startup.
I also use a free utility called AppleJack for OS X 10.6 and previous that can be started in single user mode for troubleshooting. Below are some links to these items. Give us some follow up if needed.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1772
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15667/applejack
http://www.macworld.com/article/1135377/applejack15.html
Similar Messages
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My iBook is not working at all well. Everything is EXTREMELY slow and most applications will not work at all. It feels as though my HD is on its way out. Can anyone please advise? I am running 10.3.9.
HD is also running quite loud. I've tried deleting a lot of programmes and files but Empty Trash seems to have crashed too.There are lots of reasons that your computer might be running slow--one is insufficient RAM, and one is insufficient free hard drive space. For more information about these and other suggests, please visit
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
Also, check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard drive by opening disk utility and clicking on your hard drive. If it reads "failing" you may indeed be about to lose it.
In any event, it would be a good idea to institute a back up system for your critical files if you haven't already. -
What's the best way to use a cloned Snow Leopard drive with an iBook?
My aging and ailing MacBook Pro is going in for Apple Care.
I've made a clone of its hard drive and would like to keep working this week using an iBook G4. Alas, an external drive with Snow Leopard will not boot from an iBook. I did format the drive as an Apple Partition Map, so I can see it from the iBook and work with its files--but it will not start up from it.
I forsee screw-ups as I work with some programs and files on the iBook and others off the hard drive. Eudora, e.g., requires its In Box and Out Boxes to reside on the boot drive; many of my favorite programs take their settings from the start up computer, not the external drive. That means there will be all sorts of settings-- e.g., Word, Excel's, iKey's --that will need setting on the iBook or copying over to it.
Alternatively, I could downgrade the external drive to Leopard or even Tiger so I can boot from it and work with the files that way. I think that will require having to reformat the external drive--which means no direct cloning of the MBP drive to it! It also would preclude an easy 1-step restore (I'd have to clone it back to the MBP and then upgrade to SL).
Unsure which way makes the most sense-- or if there's another way I haven't thought of. I do have additional hard drives to play with (e.g., I made another SL clone of the entire MBP drive).
Any ideas, suggestions welcome!AstroMacMan wrote:
Appreciate that extra tidbit, although that's not exactly true, is it? I mean, I had a cloned Leopard MBP and a cloned Tiger hard drive that do boot from the iBook!
If we could distinguish and separate the hardware drivers, download them from Apple etc., then it could be said we can use a clone on another model of Mac provided: A, B and C are met.
But since Apple has changed from OS 9 to OS X, PowerPC 32 bit to 64 bit, PowerPC to to Intel 32 bit, Intel 32 bit to 64 bit, locks the drivers to certain install disk versions and changes hardware around constantly, including changing the OS and making it not run on earlier versions of hardware, sideways stuff like A4/A5 processors, causing such a cluster mess of confusion and obscuration that it's better to say NOT than trying to find the tiny possibilities that it can happen.
If it does happen, lucky you, likely won't happen for any duration worth relying upon. -
I have an iBook G4, here are the specs:
Processor: 1.33 GHz
The rougly 60GB of disc space it came with
RAM: 256 or 512MB (supports up to 1.25 or 1.5GB, but I just have what came in it, though I'm not sure which is in mine)
I have a disc to upgrade it to Tiger, but I'd love to go one step further and upgrade to Leopard. However, I'm not sure if my laptop will support this. I've read that I need more RAM to install Leopard. I've also read discussions of people who have the same model I do, and other people told them to install Leopard to fix whatever problem they may have been having. So, should I assume I need more RAM, or should I assume it's safe without it? Also, I'm not entirely sure whether or not I have 256MB or 512MB or what, and I can't get on it to check. That's part of the reason I'm trying to reinstall the OS, because it won't start up, and I've narrowed it down to this solution, but I figured I'd just upgrade at the same time. So, should I add more memory, or will it work as is?
Also, is it extremely difficult to add a new (larger) hard drive, so I can store more stuff? Like.. 320GB. Is this a hard exchange, or simple as pulling out the old one and putting in the new one?
And one last question. I'm sure this is a dumb crazy question, but would it be possible to switch an iBook G4 to an Intel chip in order to support Snow Leopard? I probably wouldn't actually do it, I'm just curious if it's possible.
Message was edited by: AnthonyOmPLHDreadsIf the same computer is having difficulty as suggested was the case
in your earlier post, were any of the ideas brought up then & there
tried in regard to resolving them, back within this other thread?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2230651&tstart=0
If the computer is a 1.33GHz 14" iBook G4, the fixed RAM as shipped
would have been a 256MB chip on the logic board; but the later 1.42GHz
14" iBook G4 would have 512MB on the board. {Either one could take a
1024MB 200-pin SO-DIMM PC2700-DDR333 upgrade RAM chip.}
An iBook G4 14" with 1.33GHz processor, shipped with a version of 10.3
on installer discs and installed in the hard disk drive; the later model 14"
and 12" (mid-2005) shipped with versions of Tiger 10.4.x on DVD discs.
The hard drive, as indicated in the earlier thread link above, was suggested
as a probable cause of earlier issues back in November. So, it likely still is.
The moving parts and wear items generally are the first to check into, when
or if a computer stops working; that is, after the more obvious likely causes.
Power issues, such as they are in a portable (battery, charger, DC-in board,
and PMU reset) can also contribute to a failure to start. An overly full HDD
can result in the corruption of the hard drive's basic directory and if that is
bad, then a tool such as Disk Warrior could be used to rebuild the directory.
An upgrade to a new OS X over the top of a damaged hard disk drive will not
fix the underlying low-level drive problems; if only directory damage, a repair
via Disk Warrior is likely. If failing hard drive damage, a new drive is needed.
If there is nothing to be saved or salvaged from the ailing drive, and it is open
to experimentation, then the computer could be booted from an OS X install
disc and the Disk Utility on there may be used to "secure erase" one-pass to
wipe the drive content, and then choose to reformat the hard disk drive, the
partition map APM would be used, and for format scheme HFS+ before a new
installation is tried, could at least let you know if the old original hard disk drive
has a few more hours run-time in there before a catastrophic failure costs all
the data and work on a computer. You can sometimes get an old worn drive to
work awhile longer by fixing it with Disk Warrior, and/or totally wiping & reformat
the drive, so no old directories or data exists, and start over.
You could try recovering existing data from that iBook's drive via FireWire Target
Disk Mode, and use a FireWire cable to access data in another Mac. Such data
could be saved to a blank CD or DVD media in the healthy Mac for later recovery.
There are other ideas which could also be tried or used in these matters.
And there is every chance an installation of Tiger or Leopard *will not*
fix this issue, by itself. There is more going on.
Good luck & happy computing! -
Another iBook cannot get past the grey screen with spinning gear
I have read the other posts on iBooks not starting up. I too have used Onyx recently but this was to cure the problem of a freeze. Now start up cannot get past the grey screen. PRAM has been zapped and safe mode will not work. Worse, the CD drive will take CDs so cannot go back to start up disk.
Bizarrely, a visit to the Apple Store and the iBook started no problem. System was reinstalled using archive option and various health checks apparently showed no problems. But then got back home and again start up froze at grey screen with spinning gear. I have left it on this for over 15 minutes but to no avail. I have tried to connect to another ibook using T key to get target mode. I'm not sure if I am doing this right. I have started up working iBook plugged in the firewire to both machines and then started up ailing iBook holding down T key. 2nd iBook wont start at all.
Any suggestions?An Archive and Install will preserve you user settings and data. You will need a minimum of 5 GB free on the hard drive to perform an A&I; you can reduce the space required by about 1 GB by selecting the option to install language support only for the language you use (assuming you don't need multiple languages).
However, after seeing your other post (BTW, it'll be easier to keep track if relted issues are in the same thread), you do not want to try an A&I if Disk Utility is reporting anything about 'could not be repaired'. Doing so will would ensure problems down the road, if it worked at all. It's possible for one disk problem to mask another. Whenever Disk Utility (or any other repair utility) reports making repairs, it's good practice to repeat the repair until it reports no problems found or it becomes clear it cannot repair the disk.
DiskWarrior has an excellent track record at repairing problems that Disk Utility cannot (especially Disk Utility versions prior to OS X 10.4.2).
If the drive cannot be repaired, you may be able to keep it by doing an erase install with the write zeros (one pass) option. That will update the hard drive firmware record of bad disk sectors to avoid using. If there are only a few bad sectors, that may let you keep using the hard drive for several more years. An erase install will do just that to your data, through. If you have access to another Mac with either a large amount of free disk space of a DVD burner, you can try using the other Mac as host and the eMac as target in FireWire target disk mode. You can run the host's copy of Disk Utility on the eMac hard drive, and hopefully be able to mount the emac HD so that you can back up the data in your Home directory. -
IBook won't boot, stops at gray screen--HELP
I couldn't find this exact topic at first glance and I am hoping someone can help me. My ibook is about 5 years old and has only really crashed on my once 2 years ago but I was able to reinstall the OS and go on my way. This time, however, nothing works. I tried to boot up yesterday and the gray screen appeared and that was it along with a strange buzzing sound. I tried Disk Warrior, wouldn't even boot off that. Also tried booting off system disk 1 and didn't get past the language screen, just hung up with that buzz again.
Does this sound like a logic board issue? Can it be rescued?
Thanks in advance for any help!I'm not sure if the computer can be checked out at home in such a way
in its present state, to see if there is a logic board failure behind it, now,
or not. There could be a hard disk drive failure, or ATA controller failure;
and a short list of other possibilities, best checked over by a specialist.
Certain keyboard commands and things could be tried (and I usually
assume they'd been tried before asking here, but that's often not so)
just to see if one or more of them could get a rise out of the dead Mac.
Be sure, if you can get the installer disc to boot the Mac, that you
try and use the Disk Utility to repair disc; maybe more than once;
and do not try to just reinstall an Archive and Install. The HDD may
have corruption issues and it may need low-level zero-data and re-
formatting before a new system could go on there, if it worked at all.
{Even trying to reset PRAM/NVRAM and then seeing if you can get
the bootable OSX installer disc to start up the Mac could be OK.
Maybe that PMU reset, as a last resort? It probably won't hurt...}
A system on an external bootable enclosed hard disk drive could be
used by a tech or a prepared home-tech owner, and a clone of the
machine's system then attempted to be used to boot the ailing Mac.
If the optical drive and other components relying on the logic board
are dysfunctional due to a defect on that main board, most external
devices may also have a hard time trying to use these methods of
outside efforts to troubleshoot be nominally successful.
There may be a way a tech can use an second computer to get
data off the drive in your iBook, should it come to that, by using
the FireWire Target Disk mode and see if your iBook can start
and act like an external hard disk drive. A copy of the drive's
content or parts of it may be made by the second healthy Mac.
A clone (perhaps not bootable if data on it is damaged and not
recoverable) could be made if the second healthy computer has
a clone utility and also an external drive it can copy/clone the
iBook's drive content over to. This may be asking too much;
but the home user who has stuff on hand could do it shortly.
Anyway, there are some ideas online, if you can search google
and choose appropriate words; I looked but you may need to
read through several different source links to see if anything
sounds like it may work. re: iBook won't start past grey screen
Some users have tried resetting the PMU, others tried NVRAM
and PRAM; a few tried SafeBoot to see if the system was OK
enough to load in a reduced startup mode; maybe where the
system's own Disk Utility could be ran to at least fix permissions.
And of these, if it is truly a logic board or a failed hard disk drive,
they won't really do much. Probably no harm; and that is part
of what troubleshooting is all about, working with zeros and ones!
Good luck & happy computing!
edited to add a chapter. -
Boy,this is confusing. I need to know where I can get someone to replace hd in a g3 iBook? Thanks
You could contact a specialist such as they are equipped to handle portable Mac computers and have adequate knowledge, skill, ability and parts usually on hand for most older and newer Macs; including out of warranty.
Been awhile since my portables had an issue, I found good reports on a company in North Carolina and contacted them by email and also by toll-free phone call; then I mailed an ailing iBook G3 there via USPS. The NC company I chose did a good job on the repair and later when I upgraded to a later model, that iBook was still in fine shape and the next owner had a great first Apple experience with it. I was sure to include all software discs and hardware parts, and the box and book with it, too.
While I found the local companies here at the time would only send my computer away to some distant out of state repairer (and not to Apple, as it was out of warranty, etc) then add a 100% premium markup over cost) I read comments online and decided on one company that way, perhaps the most distant from here, in small town AK.
You could check out 'wegenermedia dot com' and contact them by phone, to inquire how to best proceed; they have nearly every part in stock for most portable Macs, and qualified service personnel on staff... While there are a few others, I found from this company I was dealing with the owners and technicians directly.
Anyway, hopefully this helps somewhat.
Good luck & happy computing! -
Help~IBOOK G4 abnormally running
I've been not using the ibook for abt 9months.... when i turn on the ibook, it works, but the applicant menu bar (on the bottom) disappear. I cannot use the applications(just can open the application via opening the Harddisk directly, but even the Harddisk it is also cannot display problem, the text or symbol disapper in the window).... and i cannot launch the system application to fix the problem... what's going on? Help~~
Anyone can help~~~Is there no Apple menu bar, with blue apple in the far left side? The shutdown
is normally there, among other controls and access.
If you still have the original disc install-restore set of software that accompanied
the computer you have, when new, there should be a disc with Apple Hardware
Test written on it, and instructions on the label on how to start the computer from
that disc to run the Tests. If your install disc is a DVD, the instructions are on it.
There may be a hardware failure or something like that going on in your computer.
Or, it may be too full to run the computer correctly, and so the system could be in
a state of damage. Data corruption can occur if the drive gets too full, or if an old
hard disk drive starts to fail, the data may be written wrong and the Mac not work.
Can you find out the full capacity of the hard disk drive, and also, the remaining
amount of free space left on that hard drive? This may be an indicator.
You could also consider trying to find out more about the status of the hard disk
drive in the computer, since as those age, they do wear out and need replaced.
The booted Installer disc #1 (C key held on startup) until language window, skip
to second window where Installer name appears in main menu header, click in
the Installer Menu in top of screen and look for Disk Utility; you can run this from
the installer disc only through this menu. To go any further is a mistake, since at
this point in time, you do not want to reinstall a new system. You need to find out
the status of the hard disk drive and also to see if you can use Disk Utility to run
'repair disk' and also, run 'repair disk permissions'. Also, you can click on either
the name of the hard drive (usually Macintosh HD) for repairing disk/permissions;
or you can click on the name of the hard drive brand/manufacturer in order to
use Disk Utility to Verify or repair the hard drive itself. Verify will check to see if
the S.M.A.R.T. hard drive system tests the hard disk drive to be OK or failing.
(If you go past the Installer menu window, and don't need to be that far, be sure
to use the option to quit the Installer; and then reboot from that disc to start over
in the process of using the Installer's Disk Utility; instead of installing the OS.)
Sometimes, a hard disk drive may still be failing when the Verify of SMART says
it has Passed the test of this in the booted installer's version of Disk Utility.
In order to quit Disk Utility, when the computer is running from the Installer disc #1,
you have to choose it like any application from the Menu. And then look into the
Installer's menu bar again to find the Startup selector, where you get to choose to
start the computer from the hard disk drive and not from the system disc.
You may have to later see, if the above does not do alot, if the computer will start
up in SafeBoot (hold Shift key down through bootup, release key when Login window
appears; login and continue until desktop appears) and then use GO in Finder window
to choose Utilities folder in its drop-down menu. Look for Disk Utility in the Utilities folder;
and launch it. Choose or click on Macintosh HD from side menu in Disk Utility, and run
'repair disk permissions'. When done, quit Disk Utility and restart computer normally.
If you have issue with the computer and the dock, menu bar or other things don't work
right, see if SafeBoot will give you access. This is a limited startup mode good for some
troubleshooting and for some access to attempt basic repair.
The computer could need a new hard disk drive; or the contents totally wiped from the
drive, so having an external archive of the contents of the computer is essential. You
could maybe start a failing computer up in FW Target Disk Mode to see about getting
into it from a healthy computer, via FireWire cable; and use a healthy computer's
optical drive to save contents to a CD or DVD media disc.
The booted Disk Utility on the Installer disc #1 has tools in it, that can totally erase,
secure-overwrite contents with zeros, reformat, and other disk tools. A questionable
hard disk drive may be marginal to attempt to do a more simple Archive & Install on,
since it may already be too full to put a new system folder on there.
Anyway, trying to troubleshoot an ailing computer remotely can be tedious.
The more you can find out, and learn how to do ahead of an issue, the
more helpful your understanding is, to relate issues you experience to others.
And the more helpful other people may be in trying to understand problems.
Good luck & happy computing! -
The tiger install dvd boots only to show an image of what looks to be two steps, not sure what its showing me.. possibly inserting RAM? Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Could you get a picture of the screen, load that into your working computer,
and post it into a reply here? There are a few kinds of situations where a
similiar display of that sort may appear.
Given the G4 iBook PPC (which model) is a bit dated now, one has to
assume you have the original 'install-restore' DVD it came with, new.
What was or wasn't it doing, before you chose to try to boot Tiger DVD?
Do you have a second Mac, one w/ FireWire ports; maybe Thunderbolt?
It may be possible to further look into the ailing iBook G4 via FireWire
from a second Mac, and attempt to investigate, or save old data to some
external drive, USB Flash; in case you need to totally wipe the HDD.
An image of the iBook screen may be helpful. Someone else with recent
troubleshooting or extensive use of iBook portables (or other OS X issue)
that presents such a screen instead of a normal progress screen, may
have an immediate idea. Without an image, I am not venturing a guess.
What key did you hold down while trying to boot the computer from DVD?
One set of keys can get you a Startup Manager. Among other options. -
How To Connect My PB To An iBook...
My cousin just bought a new ibook - I'll be going to over to help him set it up and it would be nice to transfer some of the family pics / files I have on my powerbook over to his machine to load up into iphoto etc.
I'd like to find a way of connecting the two 'books so that both are still useable... I'm hoping that simply connecting the two via a firewire cable will create some sort of mini-network?... but that sounds to easy...
I'm trying to avoid 'target disk mode' as this means one of the 'books will have to be inactive... he currently hasn't gone live on broadband - although it is imminent...
If anyone has any advice / help it would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance."I'm hoping that simply connecting the two via a firewire cable will create some sort of mini-network?... but that sounds to easy..."
But it is that easy. Network the iBook and PowerBook via IP over FireWire:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1845.html
PowerBook G4 (15 FW800); 17 iMac G5; Mac mini 1.42 Mac OS X (10.4.3) -
What do i buy to hook up my ibook....
what do i buy to hook up my ibook g4 into my tv using the A/V plug??
do i hook up the --(Apple Mini-DVI to Video Adapter) to my ibook then hook up the --(Apple AV Cable for iBook) to the adapter??....
thanks for the help...You need to use the Apple Video Adapter M9109G/A to get a video signal.
Then you just need a male-to-male video patch cable to connect the adapter to your TV. -
How can I stop shared files in iBooks being highlighted by different family members?
I Have family sharing set up which is great for sharing apps and music however I have a problem with iBooks. My wife and I both use ePub files which a re study material. The great thing about these is that we can highlight and add notes to files.
THe problem is that our individual highlights and notes are shared with each other. So I get my wife's highlights and notes on top of mine.
We ha ve tried clearing all ePub files from my wife's ipad, and only syncing them to mine. She then downloads her own copy of the ePub file. So one has the original which is on our iMac and one has another copy. This makes no difference as iTunes recognises them as the same file.
We'd be happy to switch off family sharing for iBooks to prevent this but that doesn't seem possible. It's all or nothing. I can't turn off family sharing completely as my wife will lose access to our shared music library.
Does oes anyone have any suggestions? Basically, we want to share music and apps through family sharing but have a separate collection of books even though those books might be ide bridal before we annotate them.Have you tried going into the Preferences on iBooks on your Mac and unchecking the option for syncing across devices?
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I am in the process of authoring an eBook using iBook Author. The project is a work in progress and I want to share the draft with other collegues. We each have our own iPads synced with other computers and we have different iTunes acounts. I attempted to preview the book on the new iPad, but the iPad did not come up in the available device window.
Am I missing something or is there a way around this?How to use multiple iPods, iPads, or iPhones with one computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495 -
How can I transfer my iPad iBooks to iTunes library?
I'm having a problem getting my iPad books into my mac and I really could use some help. The situation is, my mac got stolen a few months ago and I finally could get a new one. I also have an iPad, where I had thankfully stored all my iBooks. They're backuped to iCloud cause I could restore them to said iPad (using iOS 6) just using my Apple id. But most of them weren't bought at the iTunes store but downloaded from other places. The only thing I can see in iTunes (v. 11.0.2) when I connect the iPad is the ones I bought at the iTunes Store. How do I do to get my old ones in iTunes and (now that I know how hard this is) in my mac to do another backup somewhere else than in iCloud?
Has someone done this before and could help me? I've been looking for it for hours and I can't seem to find a solution. I'd be very grateful if someone could point me out in the right direction. I mean, they're there! How do I get them? Help!Thank you. That would have worked too, but before getting the answer I found another solution: what I finnaly did was use Detunes to copy my books from the iPad. It was quite fast too. Any of those could have worked quite nicely.
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Can I move an ibook author file from one device to another?
I have ibook Author on my Macbook and my Mac Mini. If I start a project on my Macbook, is it possible to transfer the incomplete file to my Mini (where all my pictures and charts are stored) later to complete it?
~~ ChikanaJust like any other file, save your book where you can find it - it will have the suffix .iba
Move that file, however you like, to your other computer and continue there.
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