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[SOLVED] Help! Did I brick my powerbook?
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kevinhaddock
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:02 am    Post subject: [SOLVED] Help! Did I brick my powerbook? Reply with quote

Hi, I got one of the aluminum power books. open boot firmware says it was compiled in 2005. Its a 1.67 ghz 15" screen model.

I copied the 2008 PPC livecd to usb w/another linux machine, then proceeded to attempt to boot from it by going into open boot and basically following this (but altered for linux, like the path being ppc\chrp\yaboot.

After a couple failed attempts with it not being able to find the device at all, it eventually looked like it wanted to boot but came back w/a setenv invalid number error.

I found somewhere that that could mean one might set their boot-device with setenv then do mac-boot rather than trying to boot to the device directly so I did that. It cleared the screen, made it gray, and came up with a little folder and question mark icon that alternated with a mac face icon. I let it go for awhile because I read somewhere that it could take a few mins, and when I got back, I can't remember if it was dead, or if I tried to reboot it, but now ALL it will do is chime. The screen is black. It NEVER boots to the point of illuminating the keyboard (so I guess we can assume its not just a dead screen).

I even went to the point of doing this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431#faq11

Still nothing but a chime when the power button is pushed (and then it has to be held down for 10 seconds before it can be cycled again).

I can't go into the open boot or anything.

Any ideas what I can try next? I just bought this machine (used but apparently in nice shape and it was running osX great for several hours, including when the seller first showed it to me and it had been in his hot car's trunk all day but it still didn't miss a beat).

Is there any way to get some kind of error code on this thing? Or is it merely "parts" now?

TIA,
-Kevin


Last edited by kevinhaddock on Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:42 pm; edited 2 times in total
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kevinhaddock
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:04 am    Post subject: oops Reply with quote

the thing I was following was this:

http://lifedigital2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/how-to-install-mac-osx-from-usb-on-powerbook-g4/
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kevinhaddock
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:06 am    Post subject: one more thing Reply with quote

even before I apparently bricked this thing, I could NOT get it to boot to the install disks with 'c' while booting, even though I could read the cdrom just fine when OSX was up and running. I don't know if that is relevant, but I thought it was curious
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kevinhaddock
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:29 pm    Post subject: got it! Reply with quote

had to hold down the power button as it booted and it cleared everything and let me into open boot.

this seems to be the best page for recovery of these little monsters:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
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