Thread

Ibook G3 Dual USB Mac Ox Install without CD drive

Ibook G3 Dual USB Mac Ox Install without CD drive PowerPC 13 posts Oct 31, 2014 — Nov 4, 2014

#1 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 08:48

I have a new toy to play with, someone ask me to have a look at a lonely Ibook.

This had no PSU for a test, but the one from a Powerbook G4 made the trick and i got a working Ibook.

Unfortunately, the System is in German and the CD drive doesn't work, is there any chance i can use an external CD Drive or a method via USB ?

#2 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 10:28

Probably best to use Target Disk Mode over FireWire, using another Mac. It might be possible to use USB but it'll be REALLY slow.

#3 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 11:17

I can attest to the slowness of installing over a USB CD drive. FW is definitely your best option (target disk mode or booting from a FW hard drive to install from an image).

#4 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 12:32

I have no Firewire cable so far, will try with USB, can be a challenge :beige:

#5 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 20:00

A USB Cd drive works just fine, it's a little slow, but not too bad. (Lets face it - Booting OSX from a CD is slow at the best of times, USB dosen't make it that much slower)

#6 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 21:52

I failed to get FW to work recently for this on a 'book save, was successful making a 10.4.6 install drive from the CD I have on a USB stick. The only way the iBook would start up was to to the OPTION key down startup. Takes a minute for the book to "see" the flash drive, then once that appears as an option other than the hard drive, select it and click the arrow. Boot follows.

#7 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 - 22:32

Yeah you have to do that to get it to boot, OSX on PPC's refuse to recognize USB drives with OSX as bootable (afaik they will see OS9 drives as bootable though)

What i have always found odd is that most usb 1 macs will boot from usb, but most usb2 macs won't

#8 Sun, 2 Nov 2014 - 11:11

Small update, problem solved, using the image of the 10.4 DVD installer and an USB stick, the Ibook is now back to French.

The USB stick was formated using my wife's Imac with the ability to boot a PPC based computer.

using the hard drive utility, the stick was properly set and the Ibook recognized both the internal and the stick as bootable units (using OPTION key)

The install was smooth (only 40 minutes) so pretty quick :beige:

#9 Sun, 2 Nov 2014 - 12:03

That's cool. I had to go into open firmware to boot on a usb stick on mine. Hard drive utility or Opt key wouldn't recognize the stick...

#10 Sun, 2 Nov 2014 - 12:34

Something to do with formating process or maybe the stick itself ?

Time to change the keyboard also, posting right now with it, but the Qwertz keyboard is not for me ...

#11 Mon, 3 Nov 2014 - 14:08

Switching keys solved the problem and a 512 Mb stick improved things a bit.

#12 Mon, 3 Nov 2014 - 17:23

I have had some experience with booting off of a USB stick and an iMac G3. I tried installing Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 with some luck. It got to a happy mac and then got stuck there and a broken folder icon appeared. I formatted the stick with an eMac and set it up to be bootable with a PowerPC computer and then blessed the system folder by doing some commands in terminal.

#13 Tue, 4 Nov 2014 - 09:44

Good to know that is possible, is was stuck with that CD rom drive, and the Ibook seem to be pretty hard at disassembling.