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Resolved Cry for help. Powerbook G4 wont boot Tiger

Tymscar

Tymscar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2020
15
3
Coventry, England
Just got this Powerbook G4 (A1138) and it came with 10.5 on it. The reason why I bought it was to experiment with Tiger as I never had the chance before and I wanted to use Classic mode on it as well! Now where the problems start: the dvd drive is completely broken. I watched a couple of videos and documented myself on how to install through USB and honestly it doesn’t seemed that bad. Followed everything that I was told and it wont boot. Here are the weird problems I encountered:

  1. Some of the Tiger images I find online wont let get into the install. They just give me a big no entry sign. I did make sure to be ppc and not intel.
  2. Some boot the install but get stuck on a blue background before the actual installation
  3. Some boot the install, and suddenly get a message showing how to plug in batteries into a magic mouse. If I instantly plug in a mouse tbe whole computer freezez. If however I was 5 minutes and then plug in a mouse I can actually install the os. All goes perfectly. (Only the mouse and kb work though, the integrated trackpad doesn’t work durin the install(but its functional because I tested it on 10.5)). When the install is over and I reboot the pc, it boots to a blue screen, with a message saying “Starting mac os x” and a loading bar. The bar is animated and moves up to around 10% and then freezez the whole comouter. Cant even toggle capslock on and off. Now I tried verbose but this is after verbose ends. Tried to boot with and without a mouse, to no avail. Interesting note: I booted in single user mode, and it does get to the terminal, I checked the created users and only root is available. Which makes sense as I was never prompted to create an account. Is there any way to force that to run?
Another thing I made sure was to check the version of tiger I am installing and it does seem to be the black cd one but I cant be sure as it’s only posted online. I do know however its the correct version that supports my laptop.

I made sure the usb stick is apt(otherwise it wouldnt install) I cant however make 100% sure the hdd is apt because in disk Utility in the installer I cant change the partition scheme but I am confident its apt because I can in fact boot single user mode.

The install that tells me to plug in batteries and basically requires me to use a mouse makes me think its an powermac installer rather than a powerbook installer. But Im not sure.

I cant find any place to buy legit install CDs and even if I would, they wouldn’t be able to boot because of my dvd drive being broken. The best iso I found was from macintoshgarden(the one requiring a mouse)

If you want pictures of the process I can provide them if they could help!

The furthest I got was installing the OS, it boots to single user mode, it doesent error at all in verbose and in normal boot it gets stucks at the "Starting Max OSX" screen.
95561994_246630326456656_4987837523339247616_n.jpg
Picture attached.

I spent maybe 70 hours over the course of this past week and I still cant figure this out, so please, if any of you can help me out I will be the happiest!
 
Welcome to the forums and congrats on your new toy :)

Are you using a 10.4.0 ISO to do the install by any chance? If so, the A1138 needs at least 10.4.2. Try using a 10.4.6 ISO (it's on the Garden, the file you need is Tiger_4_6.dmg_.zip).
 
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I did mention in my post that I used the iso on mac garden. That did get me to the point in my picture but no further. Thank you. I love this community. Hopefully we can get this working!
 
Sorry for my misunderstanding then. I thought you referred to the CD version of Tiger which, AFAIK, is 10.4.0. But just to be sure, can you boot into single user mode and run uname -a ? What version (8.x.0) is returned?
 
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I am the one sorry. Maybe my frustration came through the text because I cant figure this out myself. If you have any other questions, dont hesitate to ask. I am on 8.0.0. Here is a picture:
92684334_2473232906111645_1228096862649581568_n.jpg
 
There's the problem. Darwin 8.0.0 is Tiger 10.4.0 which is too old for your PowerBook. It needs 10.4.2 (Darwin 8.2.0) or a later version. Reinstall using the 10.4.6 ISO from the Garden, that should get you up and running.
 
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Ok, so now I remember. The CDs on macintosh garden are the only ones that got me installed(but nothing further), whereas the DVD that you pointed to always gets stuck here as soon as I boot into it. So this is before any installer gui. Verbose boot obviously. Thanks again for helping me!
dddd.jpg
 
Seeing that boot error, I'd recommend trying a different flashdrive. I also have a drive that identifies as a "Kingston DataTraveler 3.0", and my A1138 doesn't like it. I get the impression that the USB ports don't give it quite as much power as it wants. I've booted from other USB sticks fine, but never booted from that one on my PB.
 
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Ok. So this is it booting(verbose again. otherwise it loads forever in a loop like the other one) the same thing with a much nicer USB. Identical problem. I really doubt it's the USB. I am open however to suggestions!
usb.jpg
 
Is this also a USB 3.0 drive (guessing based on the "Ultra USB 3.0" portion of the log)? If so, then better may not be better in this case. I tend to agree that it seems to be unlikely at this point, but an older USB 2.0 drive would be the best to fully eliminate that possible point of failure.
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Also, after thinking more about the things you said you had tried already, I'm wondering if you have USB hub problems of some kind, mainly having in mind the freezing with the mouse (although that being timing related is odd), and the internal mouse/keyboard not working. This laptop, IIRC, uses USB for the KB/mouse, unlike earlier models which used ADB, so their not working, along with the other symptoms, could point to a more general problem with USB on this laptop.
 
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Ok. I will give it a go with USB 2. Altough I have enourmous doubt that will do anything. You are totally right. it is usb mouse/kb. The problems COULD be from the hub, but I dont think they are and the reason is simple: Everything worked beautifully on 10.5. Let me get back to you after trying a usb 2.0 drive. God it will be slow... :oops:
 
Oh. I forgot to explain that. So I own a bunch of computers. First I tried DD on Linux. That worked for some images but mostly it failed. Then I went the route that is described in all the tutorials for these kind of things, and Ive tried to restore the image onto the usb using my macbook pro 2018 with disk utility. Lo and behold a million and one errors. I spent a week trying to fix those just to get annoyed with it and then I tried TransMac on windows. That worked but it made me feel that it might be the problem. Thought that might be why it freezes, you never know. So I dusted my old trusty 2011 11" air with 10.9.5 on it and thats what I use now. Disk utility, wipe the usb every time.P artition it. 1 partition, apple partition map scheme. Then unmount that, mount the iso or dmg that I want to use and restore it onto it. Unmount the usb, plug it into my powerbook (tried both usb ports, same results) and then boot using OpenFirmware. Tried to boot simply by boot ud:3,\\:tbxi or whatever the partition is, tried to boot by specifying the exact path of BootX and I even tried by devaliasing both ud and cd to my usb drive. Anything Im doing wrong?
 
Tymscar said:
Oh. I forgot to explain that. So I own a bunch of computers. First I tried DD on Linux. That worked for some images but mostly it failed. Then I went the route that is described in all the tutorials for these kind of things, and Ive tried to restore the image onto the usb using my macbook pro 2018 with disk utility. Lo and behold a million and one errors. I spent a week trying to fix those just to get annoyed with it and then I tried TransMac on windows. That worked but it made me feel that it might be the problem. Thought that might be why it freezes, you never know. So I dusted my old trusty 2011 11" air with 10.9.5 on it and thats what I use now. Disk utility, wipe the usb every time.P artition it. 1 partition, apple partition map scheme. Then unmount that, mount the iso or dmg that I want to use and restore it onto it. Unmount the usb, plug it into my powerbook (tried both usb ports, same results) and then boot using OpenFirmware. Tried to boot simply by boot ud:3,\\:tbxi or whatever the partition is, tried to boot by specifying the exact path of BootX and I even tried by devaliasing both ud and cd to my usb drive. Anything Im doing wrong?
Click to expand...
In Disk Utility, you should be able to make the disk image the source and the flash drive (not the partition, the "root" drive itself) the destination for the restore. If you're doing that, then it sounds correct to me. I'm working from Leopard, so the Disk Utility may look a little different, but I assume the same options are there. I'll download that image and try the same process on my A1138 and see if it will boot. :)
 
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To add to the oddities happening, powerbook wont boot into open firware if I have a usb 2 flashdrive plugged in with this image. I am reflashing again to be sure but Its incredibly weird.
 
Tried another USB 2 and it wont start the install at all. There is a chance all my usb 2 sticks are sketchy though. Bought another one. I will receive it tomorrow and try again. How is your progress @dbdjre0143 ? :)
 
Just got the USB made, and booted from it on my A1138 with no problem whatsoever.
The specifics:
  • The USB stick is an older Kingston USB 2.0 4GB one
  • Partitioned with APM and a single partition
  • Used Disk Utility to restore the DMG mentioned above to the flash drive. (I downloaded the DMG from the "mirror" source, noting that in case one of the other sources is corrupt)
  • Booted to Open Firmware, with the flash drive plugged into the USB port nearest the power jack.
  • boot ud:,\\:tbxi
  • Booted to the Tiger installer. (obviously did not install)
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This is probably a long-shot, but have you tried a PRAM reset before booting to OF?
 
So my new USB 2.0 stick arrived. It is a quite reputable Sandisk 16 GB stick and I made sure this one to be USB 2.0 and also I bought it new to be as certain as I can that the usb sticks are not the problem here. I can only get as far as with my usb 3 stick and that is the "/private/var/tmp: file system full" error.

95321115_319259009055985_3966873769300983808_n.jpg


You have used the same image as I did and you put it onto the usb the same way. My usb is now not the problem, so the problem is the laptop itself.
Here is my reasoning now: tmp file systems in this case cannot reside on the bootable media because that is read only. So this one is loaded into ram. Saying it is full might mean there is a problem with my ram. Am I correct in following this logic?

I bought a new stick of ram and I am waiting on its arrival. Thank you!
 
So I got my new ram stick and lo and behold, the powerbook works. So for anybody in the future if youre reading this, it might be the ram. My powerbook worked perfectly on 10.5. Installed alright, but couldnt first boot 10.4 without new ram. Very peculiar. Thanks guys for the help!
IMG_1816.jpg
 
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