PowerPC :: PowerBook G4 No Longer Booting Up?
Mar 28, 2009
I know very very little about computer parts and things like that, but I hope to have provided enough information. When I boot up, both plugged into the power cord, and on battery, the powerbook will reach a white screen with an apple logo in the center. There also is a rotating disk below the apple logo. It will then shortly power down. I made a visit to the genius bar, and they told me something was wrong. I was like DUH!!! They said for $320 it would all be fixed, but I was hoping to be able to find out what was going wrong with it. Sadly I don't have the start-up disk that came with the laptop .
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Nov 24, 2008
Hi I have a problem with my PowerBook
It boots to BSD (Command Line Interface) instead of OS X (GUI Aqua)
This Video shows more
[URL]
Please note that the screen on the PowerBook is broke so I can only use it connected to an external monitor
When I try to reinstall the system, the picture does not get pushed across to the external monitor meaning I can not see what I am doing and thus can not reinstall
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Dec 5, 2008
I'm having a problem with my Powerbook G4. I kind of screwed up my drivers because I was an idiot and tried to get some Intel drivers to work on the computer through some cheat thing and now my computer won't boot up. I have an install disk but when I try to reinstall it keeps saying that I need Mac OSX Install Disk 2. I never had to use disk 2 before and I never had one to begin with.
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Jul 2, 2010
I am trying to do a clean install of OSX 10.5 on my old powerbook G4 15". I am using a 10.5 image file on my external. I partitioned the external using GUID, and restored the image file onto the external. (this method works when installing on intel macs). Unfortunately, I cannot boot 10.5 using this method on my powerbook. Is it because i am using a firewire 800 cable? Should I be booting it using a firewire 400? I know that PPC macs cannot boot using usb, so i am stumped.
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Dec 2, 2006
during startup, my powerbook will shutdown during the gray screen I've tried booting from an external drive. It goes to a gray screen without an apple logo.I've tried putting it in Target disk mode (to get my files off). But it won't mount on my desktop.Also tried resseting the pram as apple's troubleshooting suggested. nothing differen
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Jan 24, 2010
Here's the rundown: my uncle gave me a pristine Powerbook G4 Titanium edition. Good computer, 15.5" screen, definitely worth keeping. He wiped the thing clean before giving it to me. The problem is the internal CD drive is super flaky and won't take an bootable CD well. It took my Tiger bootable once or twice and bonked out during the installation. Now, I can't get anything. BUT, I have a nice external firewire 400 CD/DVD drive. I hit option and can see the disc, but the PB won't take it. Also, of course I hit C on startup to try and load from the CD. Hasn't taken since the first few tries.
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Mar 20, 2008
I've got a Powerbook G4 that has a booting issue. I will hear the startup "dong" a whirl of the drive, then it doesn't go to the grey screen with the Apple. It just sits there with a black screen.If I wait a few hours and try it, sometimes it starts up fine, or sometimes it will sit on the grey screen with the Apple symbol and do nothing.If it does boot correctly, none of the USB ports work. Any ideas on if its worth trying to repair since its 2 and a half years old and I didn't get the Apple Extended Service plan?
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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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Jan 26, 2007
My G4 powerbook has been saying recently that the start up disk is full, so i tried to empty some stuff off it. But not long after this when i tried booting it up the normal happens at first ie the t'ing' start up sound and the apple sign with the little timer going round but it does nothing else, it just carries on going round. I have tried re setting it and looked on help sites like this to try and override it etc but nothing seems to work!
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Sep 17, 2007
My powerbook doesn't always make the tadah sound when booting up, why is that?
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Jan 7, 2008
I've got a 1.5Ghz PB G4 (128MB Radeon 9700 model), and it would appear that the DVD burner is no longer being recognized. It's out of warranty. I've opened it up and verified that the cables are all connected. I know it is receiving power, because it spins up when I tell the computer to shut down. Symptoms: disc in the drive does not mount, eject key does nothing, Disc Burning in System Profiler says "No burning device was found. If you are using an external device please make sure that it is connected and powered properly.", disc in drive is not seen by Disk Utility, ATA in System Profiler only shows my hard drive.
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Oct 25, 2006
I recently got a cheap used 12 1.33 PB, that has worked great for a couple of months.Yesterday the PB shut off totally while in sleep mode. I couldn't power it back up at first, but was able to after I reset the PMU, and plugged the power cord in. The computer worked fine after that for the rest of the day.This morning, I noticed the PB shut off again during sleep mode. But this time, I can no longer boot it up. The PB chimes, but then nothing comes onscreen, and there's no hard drive activity (so I'm pretty sure its not the screen.)
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Feb 7, 2007
My 1.67ghz, 15" high resolution, Powerbook seems to be broken. I use my laptop all day every day on battery power, and charge it through the night. Today, when I got home, it drew no charge from the adaptor. I have a backup iBook G3 which still charges perfectly off the same adapter, yet the Powerbook doesn't. I have left plugged in for about 45 minutes now, but still no charge, so the computer won't start up. I have a lot of important work on this computer, so I at least need some way of getting my data off it without ripping it apart to remove the HD. What should I do? I suspect that the power port in the laptop is somehow deformed, and thus is not making a connection. If this is the poblem, will it mean a new logic board?
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Mar 21, 2007
PowerBook G4 Ti:Where can one look up the meaning of diagnostics codes? HDD diagnostics error code: ata1/6/3 HD:2,0 What does a single blinking LED on the battery mean? AppleCare does not show the HDD, chance it is ok but not connected? A friend's system wouldn't start up, he said I could take a look, asking me to recover some family photos from his Hard Disk Drive. This machine had not been used for months. So far I have uncovered two issues and would be grateful to receive further guidance here to get this machine up and going.
service history: 3/10/2005 = repaired directory errors, charged clock battery, installed optical drive. action: Remove PRAM battery and it powers up. I like to tinker, and I'm recently out of work, stumbled upon a place with step by step instructions to take apart at <http://homepage.mac.com/sysop/PhotoAlbum13.html>. Followed those steps and removed the persistent RAM (PRAM) battery, put it all back together ( except for a few screws, oops! ) and it powers up, and seems to be charging the battery as an LED lights up now. Took it apart again and checked Hard Disk Drive connections, appears ok. Put the PRAM battery back in ( battery shows: 616-0144-A, match to slide 35 ) and now the system boots ok. Maybe resetting the connections got things going, maybe the battery needed a kick, who knows............
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Mar 31, 2009
The apple keyboard and mouse have stopped working altogether on my powerbook. They were working just minutes ago. Restart did nothing. Ideas?
Both USB slots are working.
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Jun 29, 2009
I recently purchased a sort of beat up 1.5GHz 12" PowerBook G4, top of the line, and it arrived today. It boots up normally when the apple appears, then it shows the blue screen and then the mouse turns into a spinning wheel. Also, when I move the cursor, a second cursor from the same spot stays in the top-left corner. The PowerBook will only work normally as a headless server (powers on, lid closed), unless booted in safe mode. Another issue is the screen. The seller said there were lines going up and down the screen, but it varies depending on what is displayed on the screen. If the screen is grey or in target-disk mode, they do not appear, but on the 10.5 standard desktop pic, it changes pattern. The lines can be seen here: [URL]
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Jul 17, 2008
My PowerBook G4 will not boot up. It stays in this state of trying to boot up. Everything comes up...all the icons, but you continually have the little spinning gear icon and the screen flashing like it's trying to complete the start up, but it never does.
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Jul 10, 2010
My MAC powerbook was working fine yesterday! I shut it down last night and when I tried to boot it up this morning I get: the booting "sound" and the grey screen after which the screen turns to black and in the top left-hand corner
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Nov 18, 2006
My PowerBook G4(500MHz) is no longer booting. I ran Norton and it displayed "keys out of order" errors and could not fix. Is there a version of Disk Warrior, fsck or otherwise that might help this situation?
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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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Dec 8, 2008
I have a PowerBook G4 17" 1.33 GHZ machine running OSX 10.5.5 that's booting either with a black screen or into open firmware. Any idea how I can reflash the firmware and if so, where I can download the file?
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May 23, 2009
Here is the situation. I have a 12 in Powerbook G4 with OS X. About a week ago I downloaded a security update and once it was downloaded it asked to either restart or shut down the computer. I clicked restart. It shut down and then turned back on but only got to the Apple symbol with the small grey spinning wheel beneath and wouldn't finish booting up past that. I tried turning it on while holding down the option button and it went to the hard disk screen and clicked the right arrow but it still didn't get past that screen.
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Feb 6, 2009
can i change the password by booting from a 10.1.2 install disk when my pwrbook has 10.3.9 installed on it
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Oct 15, 2008
My 12 inch powerbook does not start up. Instead it loads to Darwin. I have an install disk from a 15 inch powerbook G4 and I would like to know if using this would work on my 12 inch powerbook G4?
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Mar 12, 2008
Yesterday I installed Ice Clean and ran a few of the maintenance procedures. This morning when I tried starting my laptop, it started with grey screen and apple symbol, then black screen with white text stating:
Mar 13 08:02:44 launched: can't exec /bin/sh for single user: no such file or directory.
I tried contacting Ice Clean, they claim it is not related. I checked my system profile and I thought I had 1gb of RAM it only says 512gb. Could a RAM failure cause this problem? Have started using target disk mode with my old faithful G4 and everything on the hard disk is still intact. Ran disk utility and all ok!
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Jun 11, 2008
I have a PowerMac G5 dual 1.8ghz running leopard. It worked flawlessly since the day I bought it.
Then as of last week whenever I booted the computer I would get the gray screen with a black box saying to reboot the computer (in 5 different languages). I would reboot the computer. Same screen.
Is there some way to check what is wrong? Is this typically a hardware issue or an operating system?
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Sep 19, 2008
I was installing Tiger using FireWire from my Powermac G4 and it was nearly done when my Powerbook (target) died due to lack of battery... When the Powermac was rebooted, I get only a question mark and flashing smile.
I tried to test the C and T keys holding them down during boot up but only get the smiley face every single time... I even disconnected the secondary drive to no avail.
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Sep 22, 2008
Please could you help me with this problem that i've got with my Powermac G5.
Spec is
Dual G5
2gb ram
I'm trying to boot from the Mac OS cd (tried 10.4 that it came with and 10.5) and both get to the grey screen with the Apple Logo and that's as far as it gets. No spinning loading wheel.
Tried the following..
PRAM reset
Swapping Ram out
Is there anything else i can do. It's a really good machine so i hope it's not needing a Logic Board repair!
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Oct 18, 2010
I recently came into possession of an iBook G3 (Clamshell) model M6411. Unfortunately, I believe it had a cactus HDD - it shows up in Target Disk Mode on my current model 13" MBP but refuses to format or read - locks Disk Utility/Finder up when accessed. The iBook also has NO CDROM drive in it, either (removed by previous owner, reasons unsure). I'd just like to get it to boot to see that everything else works ok. I have a retail install of OS 9.2.1 as well as an iMac G3 OS X 10.1 install CD, and a 10.3 retail disc too.
I am aware that PPC Macs cannot boot from USB CDROM drives, but they can using FireWire. So, I tried plugging it in via FireWire to my MBP, put the MBP in Target Disk Mode, put the CD in it, and held Option while booting the iBook. The iBook sees the CD on the MBP, I click on it to boot it, and it shows the Happy Mac (this is with the 10.1 CD). However, after about a minute, it shows a strange "broken folder" icon (a Mac OS 9 folder with a tear down the middle) on a grey background. It gets no further. If I use the 9.2.1 CD, it shows a Happy Mac briefly then switches to a floppy disk with a question mark. The 10.3 CD refuses to boot at all. One thing I forgot to mention is if I try and boot the iBook normally, it shows a Finder icon alternating to a ? in a blue Mac OS 9 folder.
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Jan 1, 2011
G4 won't boot. No startup chime. Power button light goes off right after I power it on. Fans go on and soon switch to high / fast mode.
Tried everything imaginable -- removing all cards, RAM swapping, PMU reset, bought a new 3.6v PMU battery... everything on this forum (I think) except buying a new power supply which I'm trying to avoid.
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