PowerPC :: 15" Powerbook Failure To Boot System
Jul 6, 2009
when power pressed to boot, it will go into boot, but then the screen starts flickering from dim to bright a clicking sound is heard, the power cord on the side changes from dark to light amber. the screen then goes to black. some times am able to get to log in then it just goes black.- More information- my harddrive had been making erratic noises for about... 3-4 months. some loud clicking... in thinking that the hd failed i bought a 160gb WD Scoirpio blue IDE drive... These problems still persist. even when i option to start up with my external drive, which i have mirrored my hard drive. it will boot up for the external then this clicking noise as noted above.
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Dec 2, 2008
I just recently started to experience some very unusual behavior on an older PowerBook G4, and I was wondering if anyone has experienced this before, as I can't seem to find any documented info on this.Basically, out of the blue, the user began to experience issues waking from sleep, while using the laptop closed with external monitor, USB keyboard and mouse. Although a powercord was always connected, the machine seemed to be powering off.For a while, hitting the power button would boot things up again, properly, but not anymore. I have since disconnected all peripherials. Now, when pressing the power button, the machine will beep 3 times and then repeat itself every so often. The sleep led will blink three times, go solid, then repeat. Sometime the harddrive tries to spin, sometimetimes not
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Nov 7, 2006
when my PowerBook (15", bought new in Aug 2004) wakes from sleep, the harddrive makes a dreaded tapping/clicking sound. It's very prominent and is not your standard HDD "chatter."Often, Finder will hang and I'm forced to power-cycle the machine. Most of the time, it boots without incident.Lately, however, there have been incidents. Tonight, when I got home, it froze. I tried to power-cycle it, but got nothing. I plugged it in.
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Jan 28, 2008
I have a 12" Powerbook G4 running 10.3.9 Panther. I am having problem booting my computer from a Firewire HD. I have done a search in the forum but cannot get a definite and/or successul solution. Forum moderators and my respected macrumor fellows, please feel free to direct me to a specific link if you find the questions redundant.Recently, I have had the HD making terrible noise and several days ago, the computer cannot boot at all. When I pushed the power button, the screen shows a folder in the middle with a Mac face and switches to a question mark back and forth. However, it just gets stuck at that stage. I suspected that I have a HD problem and wanted to boot from my clone Firewire HD. Unfortunately, the computer will not boot with Firewire HD either.
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Oct 3, 2006
I have an older 15" G4 Powerbook (before the recalled Powerbooks with the RAM slot failures) that has recently been experiencing some speed issues. To my dismay, when I checked my 'About This Mac...' I no longer had 1GB of RAM, only a lowly 512 MB. Tonight I sat down and started swapping and removing my two sticks of RAM and as it turns out, something is up.
With a 512 stick in the lower slot, System Profiler tells me I have 512 MB of RAM and that the upper slot is empty. When I put the other stick in the upper slot (leaving the lower one in), System Profiler now says I have 512 MB of RAM and that the lower slot is empty. Does this look to be a (out of warranty) logic board failure? Is there anything else I can try to do? On a related note, when removing the screws from the RAM panel on the bottom of my PB, one screw fell into my Powerbook, never to be seen again. Is this going to cause any problems down the line?
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Nov 25, 2009
I'm a new Mac user for about 6 months now. I bought a used PowerBook G4 15" 1.25 ghz notebook that was in good condition. It was well cared for by the previous owner. Only thing she had done was update the ram to 2 gigs.Recently I began to notice it running slower, programs were freezing and Garage Band couldn't run as many tracks. I installed recommended software updates before it started to get slower and I thought maybe that was the problem.So I attempted to do a fresh swipe of the hard drive and start from nothing. I saved some files and then tried to run the software installation cd. It didn't really help at all. I can't remember the error but it wouldn't let me reinstall OS X even when I held "c" when starting up. At one point I must have clicked run in target mode because I booted it up and it showed an unfamiliar screen. Then I restarted it once again and saw on Disk Utility that S.M.A.R.T. said something about hard drive failure.
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Oct 17, 2010
Got a Powerbook G4 with a "messed up" HD. Couldn't fix it, so got a firewire drive and ran a bunch of utilities from my newer intel iMac. Cloned the Powerbook's drive to a USB hard drive, did all repairs on the USB drive, formatted the Powerbook, cloned the USB drive BACK to the Powerbook, but it just gives me the flashing question mark when I try to boot.
What is REALLY weird is I can boot my iMac FROM THE CLONE ON THE USB DRIVE and it works fine.In Drive Genius the Powerbook drive (in TDM) shows as a single drive, but if I go to "Repartition" then it shows 3 smaller partitions on the drive; I believe they're called "Apple Free Space" or something like that (can't check right now, I'm running Repair on it AGAIN at the moment).
I feel like I'm missing something simple, like the machine just doesn't see one thing that tells it "Oh, yeah! There's an operating system on this drive!" I have tried partitioning from Drive Genius and Disk Utility. Have done clones back and forth with Drive Genius, Disk Utility, and Carbon Copy Cloner. Same results each time.
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May 13, 2012
Macbook Pro won't boot. Symptoms preceding failure included failure to open Firefox. When trying to cold boot I can get as far as the start-up sound, the Apple logo, and the spinning whieel (spins for a bit but not for very long) and then major failure. Not running Liom.
Info:
imac 10.1, Mac OS X (10.6.2), also have macbook pro running os 10.5
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Oct 6, 2010
I just recently purchased a powerbook g4 (1.33 12 inch) from PowerON Services. I turned it on for the first time and I was prompted to update to stuff ( osX being one of them) It then froze while installing the updates.
Now It wont boot, it is stuck on the grey screen. I tried loading from a tiger disc that I have but that didnt work. I just get a funky message saying to hold the restart button. Any words of wisdom??????
also note i tried resetting PRAM and tried booting in safe mode.
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Jan 24, 2007
I have a powerbook 12' 867 mghz, I know I would rather have a new one, but not ready to give up on this old gal yet! Anywhoo I thought the logic board was fried but after letting the powerbook "rest" I came back months later and sometimes it will boot but as soon as I try to do anything it freezes, so maybe the harddrive is fried? How do you get it to ignore the internal drive so it will boot from an external?
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Sep 1, 2009
I have a second hand 12" PowerBook G4 that sometimes will not boot. It will sometimes chime and the LCD will stay black. Like I said this does not always happen. I have already tried to reset the PRAM and PMU and this does not seem to have any bearing on the machine.
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Mar 13, 2010
to run ppc g4 powerbook from external hard drive with apps from external hd drive intel imac g5? I have a firewire hd but it is not being recognized by the ppc.
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Apr 29, 2008
My system is from October 2003 and ... would it be possible to order replacement system CD's from Apple? I specifically need the Mac OS 9 disk; I need Classic because of a few programs I wrote years ago.I had a flakey drive and when I zeroed-out and reformatted, I couldn't find all of the disks.
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Aug 21, 2009
I'm trying to figure out why I can't get my menu bar to be translucent on my MacBook. It works just fine on the PowerBook G4. Look at these:PowerBook G4 set to translucent:MacBook set to translucent:MacBook not set to translucent
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Oct 4, 2008
I just bought a powerbook, and I'm trying to get it to turn on. It doesn't have a hard drive, so obviously it won't be able to get it to boot. I just want to be able to get to the flashing folder. When I press the power button, the computer does nothing, not even the fan spins. The only indication I have that it is on is the caps lock light turns on. I've tried resetting the pram, but the screen stays blank and does nothing. I don't have any ram modules in it, so it shouldn't be a ram problem.
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Nov 1, 2006
So I've got a powerbook G4, thats 8 days past its warranty. Conveniently, it now won't turn on. It won't wont boot from CD. If I turn it on, I get a gray screen that usually just turns my computer back off, if thats not the case I get a screen that shows the finder icon and a question mark and then turns off.
All it will do is boot into open firmware mode. Currently the install disc is inside of it and I've tried booting the cd using "cd:, bxi" and "dir hd", and it can't open both. Does anyone know how to wipe the HD, and start the installer using firmware? Otherwise, I think I'll have to take out the harddrive and plug it into an external case and then wipe it.
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Mar 9, 2008
Yesterday my screen (30" Apple Cinema) started showing symptoms of graphics card failure, jagged lines across the screen. I rebooted my Mac Pro and it was gone. Then it happened again an hour later, this time the machine didn't boot, I get the Apple logo, and then it hangs up and the screen is shifted to left (I get apple logo on left side of the monitor instead of the middle) and jagged lines all over.
So the first thing I tested was using Target Disk Mode, it works. I can access my Mac Pro's internal HD's by TDM from my MacBook Pro. Then I tested single user mode, it does boot, I can't read what's written since the screen is shifted to left, but if I type (without seeing) reboot and hit enter, it reboots. So I assume the single user mode is working.
What else can I try to 100% make sure it's my graphics card that failed and everything else is ok with Mac Pro? I already ordered a graphics card replacement but I wouldn't like to be surprised if the Mac Pro still doesn't boot when the card arrives. It won't boot from Apple Startup DVD either. Same thing happens, gray logo then kernel panic with jagged lines all across the shifted screen.
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Oct 2, 2009
Yesterday my screen (30" Apple Cinema) started showing symptoms of graphics card failure, jagged lines across the screen. I rebooted my Mac Pro and it was gone. Then it happened again an hour later, this time the machine didn't boot, I get the Apple logo, and then it hangs up and the screen is shifted to left (I get apple logo on left side of the monitor instead of the middle) and jagged lines all over.
So the first thing I tested was using Target Disk Mode, it works. I can access my Mac Pro's internal HD's by TDM from my MacBook Pro. Then I tested single user mode, it does boot, I can't read what's written since the screen is shifted to left, but if I type (without seeing) reboot and hit enter, it reboots. So I assume the single user mode is working.
What else can I try to 100% make sure it's my graphics card that failed and everything else is ok with Mac Pro? I already ordered a graphics card replacement but I wouldn't like to be surprised if the Mac Pro still doesn't boot when the card arrives.
P.S. It won't boot from Apple Startup DVD either. Same thing happens, gray logo then kernel panic with jagged lines all across the shifted screen.
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Mar 29, 2008
i found an old clamshell ibook today. it started right up and all; seemed to work fine. well, now it wont boot at all. im by no means talented in this area, but i love to tinker around with stuff, i tried putting an airport extreme card into the wireless slot, and of course i dont think to shut the machine down to pull it back out. basically the screen distorted and froze. did the logic board get toasted?
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Nov 6, 2008
I've received the responsibility of a Powerbook G3 Pismo from a friend, who got it from his friend. I managed to boot it up once, running just fine, but it suddenly froze, and now I can't get this poor machine to boot. I tried using the reset button in the back, and it makes a buzzing noise, like it's trying to boot, but then it stops.
The battery is completely dead, and it only makes the sound off AC power, if the press the rest button (the power button no longer seems to work). I tried opening the machine and pulling out the PRAM connection, like has been suggested elsewhere, but to no avail. Is there any way I can know if it's the hard drive, or the logic board, or the RAM? It just died on me, upon first booting and working so well. Now all I get is a little buzzing noise every time I press the rest button, which sounds like it's trying to start up.
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Nov 15, 2006
I am leaving for a week long trip and many parts of it will not be able to run the computer off of the powercord, which is a problem because I get about 40mins of wordprocessing use out of it when I run the battery alone. Can someone explain what the significance of these levels are for my Powerbook G4 15'' (Alm) 1.25GHz, namely the cycle count and full charge/remaining capacity?
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Jan 3, 2011
I have a G3 iBook I've put together from spares just as a project. Everything works fine and will connect to the internet over the ethernet cable.As soon as I plug an Airport card in it refuses to boot, it won't even try so it seems to be a hardware issue.Is it possibly a dodgy Airport card or something else?It's a 2001, 600Mhz, Dual USB, white 12" iBook.
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Sep 19, 2008
the HD was broken so I make the change for a new one of 60GB... I dont if it?s formated or not... but MAC format... sure not!I dont have OS X now.. so I?triying to install some Ubuntu for MAC or something that could be installed if is posible to do it by USB... I need this cus I?m felling that DVD do not work properly... or do not reconieze any this to boot that I use...Is some software or free operatin system that could be burned of load by USB to boot this MAC and test that HD is OK and DVD driver?
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Jan 5, 2011
I've been reading this site for a while now, first time I'm posting. I recently purchased 8 GB of RAM for my 2010 13" MBP. There are two 4 GB DDR3 PC3-10500 1333mhz sticks. When I install them in the laptop my computer does not get past the apple logo boot screen (the spinning disc freezes). However, I can boot into Windows (boot camp) without issues.
Also, when I pair either of the 4 GB sticks with one of my old 2 GB stock sticks the laptop boots up fine in OS X. The system profiler registers it as 6 GB of 1067 mhz RAM (the stock sticks are 1067 mhz)
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Sep 13, 2009
I have OSX installed on a very old Powerbook. Well it was working and then I left it for awhile and now it is giving me the good old folder to question mark screen (maybe someone dropped it?). Well I'm not much of a mac user so I looked up all of the different boot key commands and tried to boot from my OSX CD. Holding down C did nothing, and neither did ANY of the other commands except holding down option and that key command that restarts the computer (apple, option, shift, esc?). Anyway, I got into the screen that shows your hard drive and all other devices and it actually listed the CD drive so I clicked it and clicked the next arrow. I waited for awhile and then the screen reloaded (as if it was rescanning for removable devices) and then stopped and only displayed the local disk. What is going on?! It only sometimes displays the CD in this screen and the next arrow never does anything regardless!!
I really don't know any of the computers stats but if I were to guess they're pretty bad. All I know is it used to run OSX just fine and then other people used it and now it doesn't do anything.
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Dec 11, 2008
The string of problems I've encountered started a few days ago. I normally let my imac go to sleep by itself but, on this occasion I told it to sleep via the apple menu. When I awoke the imac the screen was frozen. No mouse movement, no clock movement, nothing. At this point I turned the power off and back on again. It didn't get past the white screen (before the gray with apple logo). I then tried resetting the PRAM, booting in safe mode, and booting from my os disc. Nothing worked.
After several tens of tries it magically booted. It stayed active long enough for me to back up all my data (transferring at least 100GB), reformat the hdd, reinstall leapord, transfer data back, and use it until I let it sleep again.
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May 7, 2010
I used SuperDuper to create a mirror image of my SSD boot drive on one of the partitions on the external drive. Thinking it wise to actually check to see if the partition would boot, I used System Preferences to point to the new boot drive and restarted the ol' 2008 8x2.8 Mac Pro.
All seemed well with the startup from the new boot device. But when I tried to go to System Preferences on this system, the app failed without ever initializing a window.
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May 22, 2012
why i have to unplug the power cable from the back of my imac after every power failure at my home to get the imac to boot up. I've tried resetting the surge protecter and unplugging there. However, the only option is to unplug the cord from the back of the monitor/imac before it will boot up.Â
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Jun 15, 2012
Just got my new Macbook Pro Retina. Migrated my applications and data from my Macbook Air. Everything worked great. Apple Update advised that new updates were available. I accepted and ran the updates. Now it gets a kernal panic at boot. Can boot into Safe Mode however. I used Command R to reinstall OSX but that did not correct my problem. Same kernal panic persists.
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Jun 21, 2010
I know this is a fairly common subject matter but I have tried just about everything suggested but with no success. detailed below are my findings, I was wondering if anyone better qualified than me could suggest a diagnosis?
What does it do?
I hear the fans and hard drive and see the white/grey boot screen with the apple logo and spinning cog. The cog will spin for anything from 5 - 30 seconds before freezing. Some disk activity will continue for a short time afterwards before everything grinds to a halt?
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