Hello. I am looking to sell my old iBook (for parts) but first want to wipe it clean. Unfortunately, part of the reason I want to get rid of it is because the cd player doesn't work anymore. Therefore, I am unable to 'c' boot from the original OS X disk and erase the hard drive. Is there another way to wipe all personal info from my computer, leaving only the operating system?
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I know there are already several threads with questions on how to wipe an ibook hard drive but this one is slightly different. I can't seem to boot my computer from the install disc that came with it. I turn off the computer, hold down c and get a folder with a question mark in it. However when the computer starts I can see the disc folders. I open up disc utility and can wipe the drive but is this really wiping it? I thought I had to boot up from the CD? I ask as I am selling my machine and don't want to think I have wiped something when I have not. I have also been through the same process (from the disc just running in the drive) to install OSX Tiger. But again how do I know if it has cleared all my old settings? Do I have faulty discs if I cannot re-boot from them. All I want to do is a clean and install.
View 7 Replies View RelatedIs there any quick, easy way I can wipe my iBook G4's hard drive, leaving only the operating system?
View 2 Replies View RelatedMy PowerBook G4 (Alum) died. I've had it for 4 years, taken it with me to Alaska and all over the lower 48, and have had nothing but happy experiences. I knew she was gonna go, but I was hoping she'd hold on until I could afford a MacBook. Alas, no. The problem appears to be the ability of the logic board to communicate with the hard drive. I can hear the HD spin, but even with Disk Warrior, I cannot locate it. The Mac Geniuses at my local Apple store confirmed this and gave me a shoulder to cry on. I've run Disk Warrior, Disk Utility, and tried finding it using the target disk mode - no luck.
The problem is that I've got 4 years of teaching materials, 6000 songs, and irreplaceable pictures on the HD, so I can't bring myself to just trash it. It's true that you only fail to back up you stuff once. This is my once. I've heard that with PC hard drives, you can just drop the old HD into a USB HD box and use it as an external HD. I can't afford professional data retrevial, and I want to give this option a try if it'll work with a Mac HD. Any ideas or suggestions?
I have a G5 Imac and a G4 ibook. i want to use time machine, and have one external hard drive connect to both. I could get an external with more than one input (ie, usb and firewire)--does that work? Could i use a usb hub to connect the 2 computers to the HD, and set up different partitions?
And what of NAS? i do not want to set up a whole network (we already have one at my office, and i want this to be independent).
My 1.2 GHz G4 iBooks Firewire stopped working recently. Have tried zapping pram, reloading OSX etc but no luck. Fortunately USB is still working fine so I can still use my external 500GB hard drive, but I can't download video from my aging Sony video cam.
Any suggestions, other than chucking it and getting a new Macbook/Pro? (Which I plan to do sometime anyway, but would rather prolong the life of my iBook for the moment if possible)
I have a 5 year old iMac that has started to behave strangely.
First Microsoft Office, which had been running just fine for years, now won't open (an error required it to close). When I installed OpenOffice.org, that also showed the same message when I fired it up. Other apps are closing suddenly at a rate much higher than previously.
I have already applied advice I gleaned from the web, and forums. Problem persists.
I figure that I might as well do my very first rebuild, rather than spending ages trying to figure out the problem. With the PC, it was an annual event, so I got used to it, but I've never had the need to rebuild a Mac.
Are there any reliable web pages that tell how to wipe the hard drive and start again?
When using the Disk Utility free space wipe to wipe sensitive data (using the 7 times option), I thought that would be sufficient.
I was wondering though, does the free space wipe option also wipe the slack files on the hard drive? Is this even an issue for a Mac? (I know on Windows the slack file needs to be wiped for a completely secure erase, right?)
My brother's iBook G4 (800Mhz, First Rev) has completely splattered itself and we're getting a new Macbook for him under insurance. My iBook G3 (White, 900Mhz G3..the last G3 Rev of the iBook) has a failing hard drive.
Now, could I swap out those two drives, at least to recover stuff? And is there a specific method of opening up the iBook G4 so that I don't break stuff (I've already messed with my G3..and ended up with a dozen extra screws ^_^
Mainly the aim is to salvage the hard drive and swap them out; replacing my faulty iBook G3 one with the iBook G4 one which is perfectly fine.
I just got an iBook from a friend to use for school. its running Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 - 800 MHz PowerPC G3. It doesnt appear to have the same settings as my iMac. For example when I go into my system settings it shows my start up disks as a file "..TOSHIBA.." I know this computer has been refurbished, but is this something that could cause the CD/DVD drive to not work?
Is there someway I can fix this problem myself? I would really like to get my CD drive to work. On some CD's I can hear it trying to read it but then spits it out shortly after...some it wont do anything. But the eject button works just fine.
I recently got an iBook from a friend. He didn't want it. I took it home and I used the Recovery CD. Everything was going well. I used an audio cd on the iBook, the CD icon appeared on the desktop and it played it. On the other hand, the DVD did not work. I inserted the DVD the icon did not appear on the desktop.
I went to the Application Folder and went to the DVD Player application and it gave me a nasty message: MAC OS X -DVD PLAYER ENCOUNTERED A SERIOUS ERROR. A VALID DVD DRIVE COULD NOT BE FOUND (-70012
well where do i begin ?? basicly i purchased a ibook g4 14" 1.33ghz that had its harddrive upgraded by a apple service provider. About two weeks after this upgrade took place the harddrive started playing up and the machine would not see the boot volume on the drive when restarted or every now and then the machine would freeze after some time of use, a few hours maybe. i ran apple hardware test and it came back clean after zapping the pram and disk warrioring the drive it fixed this for a day then it started again oh well.
so i sent it back to the service provider who said yep its the hadrdrive goody !!! oh NO he calls back the next day and says the new harddrive is not reconized and that they tried a new ribbon cable WTF when i sent it in the machine saw the harddrive via target disk mode all the time it just didnt see the boot volume.
NOW his saying its the logicboard **** sake !!! so my question could this machines logicboard be fried when it was fine before i sent it in , i mean the ide controller was fine i checked it and now im faced with a brick !!!what do i do ????
I have a Powerbook G4. It doesn't have an internal wireless card so I bought a Linksys wireless adapter to plug into the side of my computer when I first got the computer. It worked fine for years. I recently reformatted the hard drive and now when I insert the wireless adapter it no longer will allow me to connect to the internet. I'm aware that Linksys doesn't have drivers for Mac users so I'm confused as to how I got it to work in the first place. I don't remember installing any third party software, but I may have, it was a few years ago. Does anyone have any suggestions what I should do to allow me to use my linksys card in my Mac? I've heard of Orangeware but I'm not sure if that's the solution. The adapter is a WPC54G
Oh one last thing, when I plug the card in, an icon appears in the top right corner that shows something is plugged into the port but doesn't allow me to click on it and search for wireless connections.
I was using my mom's 500 mhz G3 iBook circa 2k1, running 10.2.0 and it decided to start tweaking out on me. Being a somewhat aware computer person, I thought tat a simple restart would fix all of this. Shows you how much I know. Anyway, the boot-up screen showed the icon of the file with the question mark inside. Find the OS 9 CD that we have and I booted up through the CD. I finish starting up and, to my surprise, the drive appears to be erased- the computer asks me if I want to initialize the disk. I hit cancel and proceed to run the disk repair on the OS 9 CD. After it's done scanning, the the results are: "Missing Thread Record, 62078, 4260". What does it all mean? Will the computer be able to recover? What fate lies in store for the iBook?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have an ibook g4 1.2 ghz 14 inch model with the 60 gig HD runnig Os X. One day, it start freezing up, and when I restart it, it would be fine. However, after a couple of day, it would not longer boot and I would get the folder with finder and question mark. I ran the hardware test on the CD, and it said I had a mass storage error. So, I went and bought a new hd and put it in. (another hitachi one, exactly the same). So i boot it up, run the hard ware test and it is fine. Then I go about installing os x and stuff, and everything is fine. However, on my first restart a couple of hours later, my computer no longer boots up again. I run disk utility, and it does not see any Hard drives, and when i reattempt to install my os x, it can not find a destination folder. What is going on? Also, I have the old HD from my ibook that I put in my external Hd case. If this thing is not actully broken, can I use it to boot through the usb 2.0 drive on my mac? I tried to plug it in, but for some reason no power goes to it, but if i plug it to my desktop, it powers up. (the light on the case)
View 7 Replies View RelatediBook G3
900 MHz
14.1 screen
My hard drive just died & I have been searching everywhere on what type of hard drive is used in this machine. I want to replace it but I don't know what to replace it with. There seems to be about five different types of hard drives currently out there. So which one does this machine use?
so my boss' ibook g3 just broke, he brought it to apple and they said it needs a new hard drive and were going to charge him something like 400 dollars to replace it. He decided not to do it because it's so old. (not sure how old, but it's a white g3 with a cd tray). Anyway, i told him i should be able to do it. I've found directions online on ifixit and stuff but need a few more questions answered.
1. Will any 2.5 inch hard drive fit? I think i'm going for 5400 rpms because i don't want it to get too hot and he wants 80 gb. how is this one? [URL]
2. How will i run the os once it is installed? Do i need to installl 10.0 first and then move up? Can i install from the cd or do i need to do it from another computer via target disk mode?
3. ifixit suggests i get a "spudger" which i guess it a plastic anti static toothpic type thing to remove hard to get parts. Definitely needed or no? I have a set of small screw drivers that i've used for my powerbook that i thik should be fine.
4. Any tips at all you wanna throw at me.
I have a macbook pro hd i want to put in an old ibook, but the pins look different will they fit?
View 7 Replies View RelatedI just wanted to know if buying an white ibook g3 for 70$ in good working condition is a good deal or not. Here are the specs on it>> The iBook G3/600 (Late 2001 - Translucent White), features a 600 MHz PowerPC 750cx (G3) processor with a 256k "on chip" level 2 cache, 128 MB of RAM, a 20.0 GB Ultra ATA hard drive, a tray-loading DVD-ROM/CD-RW "Combo" drive, 2X AGP ATI Rage Mobility 128 graphics with 8 MB of VRAM, and a compact translucent white case with a 12.1" TFT XGA active matrix display (1024x768 native resolution).
View 9 Replies View RelatedMy iBook could be on it's last leg. I have an iBook G4 1.2 Ghz with 512 mb of RAM running 10.3.9. It started about 2 to 5 months ago. When I restart my computer, instead of the white screen with the grey Apple logo that appears during a normal start-up, I get the grey screen with a flashing box with a picture of the world inside the flashing box, then the small flashing folder that flashes the OSX logo, then a question mark (?), then it would go into the normal start-up screen (white w/Apple logo). I thought this was the Safe mode boot.
Well, recently, it would just stay on the flashing OSX logo and "?" and nothing would happen. So I would do a forced shut down (holding the power down) and power it back up. Same thing. I'd repeat this for 30 minutes to an hour, restarting anywhere from 15 to 30 times and it would eventually work.
So, the flashing OSX logo and "?" happened again last night, and I could not get it to boot after countless restarts. This morning, I grab my iBook Install disc to do a full restore. I restart and hold the C key to boot from the install disc. I go through the normal steps and when I get to Choose the Drive or Destination tab, my hard drive isn't listed. Nothing is listed. I reboot holding the option key to run the Apple hard ware test. Airport passes, Logic Board passes, then I get an error when the Mass Storage test runs. Reboot and run Test again, same results. I reboot to the install disc again and it still says no drive. I open Disc Utility and the only drive it reads is the iBook Install Disc. I restart normally, and it loads fine, and I instantly come here to seek a diagnostic as to what my problem is.
I don't understand is the strange frequency or my problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to restart it a dozen or so times. How can it not recognize my hard drive [I]some[I] of the time and not all of the time? I don't want to do a full restore just yet. I'd like to know what my problem is before I do anything drastic. I do have my hard drive backed up.
I installed a new hard drive into my wife's older iBook G4 since the HD that came with the machine was only 30GB and was max'ed out shortly after we added some applications and photos. (Never should have bought such a small hard drive in the 1st place!) The new hard drive is an 80GB hard drive I bought online. I turned on the machine and got the question mark (?) blinking with something else on the 1st screen that came up. I proceeded to insert the original iBook OSX install cds. First I cleared the hard drive under disk utility and then the computer recognized the new drive. Then installation began. Got through the first disk no problem. Then it restarted and asked for disk two, which I inserted.
Then, if it decided to start installing from disk 2 (it kept going back and forth before it actually started disk two installation), it would get about 75% through the disk two installation and I keep getting a message saying 'There were errors installing the software'. I have tried to eject and re-insert the cd and I get the same message. I started from scratch by re-booting, wiping the hard drive clean again and started with disk one, only to get to disk two and encounter the same problem. I don't want to take this computer in and pay a service company to get me straight. This is an experiment to see if I could upgrade the hard drive and memory to make a slower/older machine perform better. We really only use it for organizing photos, surfing the net, office applications, etc.
I have a G4 iBook that I use as my play computer and my mod book... I just dyed the top case and the bottom case (also the battery cover) all black and I changed the apple to red! It looks really sweet and it matches my backpack... Ok well I just read about a guy that wants to take out his optical drive out and put another hard drive in.
My question is... Would that be possible with my iBook? It is a early 2004 ibook g4 1.07 GHz, 768 MB RAM, and a small 30 gig hard drive! I would love to add more hard drive space without having to go through the hassle of finding a way to transfer all of my data on this hard drive to another!
I have a Ibook g4 that got trashed the scree stoped working it would flicker on and off so i tryed to fix it and made it worse because I have not skill so I then pulled the HD and put it in a pc laptop I have I am now trying to get files off it through linux i tryed ubuntu because that is the only thing i have used but it is way to slow on my laptop because the cd drive is older then time so I tryed dsl and puppy linux but don't know how to mount the drive it shows up in the bios but not when i try to use the simple mount tool in puppy or dsl I know this is a mac fourm but I am hoping someone has done this before
View 3 Replies View RelatedI had to replace the hard drive on my daughter's iBook G4. I replaced the original Toshiba with a seagate 160gb ATA drive. When using the original install disk, the installer cannot find the hard drive to install the OS on. I was told the problem could only be the cable or a DOA drive; so I got another new hard drive and replaced the replacement, being sure that the cable was connected properly. In the past, I've replaced hard drives several times in various machines I've owned.
I seem to remember that on one occasion I had the same problem, and found the unmounted drive with Tech Tool Deluxe that I had gotten with an old AppleCare purchase. On this iBook G4, however, the Tech Tools disk won't boot the machine. Perhaps I am mis-remembering that incident, but I'm pretty sure that I was able to mount a hard disk in the past using some sort of software. Problem is that this iBookG4 won't boot off of ANY of my older system disks I own.
I have an old iBook G4 that powers on, but then the screen just flashes on and off in grey then goes completely black. I would like to pull all the documents, pictures, and other files off the hard drive but I don't know if this is even an option.
Info:
iBook G4
I have g4 ibook 14" 1.33. I spent 2 hours unscrewing at least a hundred screws and trying to pry the white shell open. Finally I was able to locate the HD and replaced it with a new one. Screwed everything back in, crossed my fingers, and the thing booted up--hurray! Unfortunately, now the battery says 97% but it is not charging. The cord light is ever green and when I pulled the plug, it shuts down. So much for 97%. I tried all the pmu, reset-all, taking it in and out a dozen times (5-12seconds intervals), etc. Did I screw up something during the disassembly/reassembly?
View 4 Replies View RelatedIve searched all over, and cant find a solution. I put in a new HD for the 1.2ghz iBook 12", and it wont be recognized by the computer. I tried resetting the Vram/Pram, with no success. I also made sure the hd connector is connected. When I hold down "C" to the install disc, it reads the disc, but does not detect the HD. When I do not hold down c, it takes me to a question mark/folder icon.
I do not think its the new hard disk or connector or logic board, because I have read others having the problem...some say it is the firmware, and that its the OS/Installer disc that has the error...but I have no clue how to fix it.
FYI - Im typing from an iPhone.
No hard drive, won't boot from external Fire Wire drive..
I've tried all key combos
after 4 years my ibook g4 14" has a problem. my hard drive needs to be replaced. i took it to the genius bar yesterday and they gave me a referal to a store in my area that is certified to work on macs... but they don't sell hard drives in-house since they just started up a few weeks ago. does anyone have a suggestion for a decent replacement internal hard drive? i'm not looking for anything high-end. i just need a cheap, reliable drive to get me through about another year when i can get a new mac. if this matters much... i do use my ibook for a small amount of video editing, graphic design, etc... but only when work has to come home w/ me.
*the guys at the repair place did suggest a few... but they were all in the $250-$350 range... i was hoping to keep it around $150 or lower since i've been doing fine w/ my 40gb for 4 years now and i have 2 externals that total 1.75 tb. they said i could find some for that price elsewhere... but they only ordered from one place when they needed to... and none were available (in my $ range) there*
i just bought a clamshell ibook on ebay for $90, quite a bargain i think. its 366mhz, 320mb ram, only problem is the 10gb hard drive. i know its upgradable. the 9.5mm UltraATA-66 hard drive which is what i read it has,dont really go over 10gb, or at least i cant find any that do. the ones i find are very expensive. i see some clamshells on ebay upgraded to 20 or 30gb, what kind of hard drives do those people use? i know it takes a lot of disassembly to do it too, if someone could point me to a guide to doing that it would be most good.
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