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G4 ibook harddrive reformat

Discussion in 'Mac - General discussion' started by icyhandlz, Jun 13, 2007.

  1. icyhandlz

    icyhandlz Member

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    Hey guys,
    My ibook came off a school network and i got it DIRT cheap, im thinking all i gotta do is reformat so i get the discs, i did download them, im just curious i hold down the c button to load from cd-rom and the apple comes up and the apple moves a little to the right and a little line above and to the left of where the apple normally is shows up??? Any ideas?? did i get screwed with this purchase or is it just my osx discs??? im gonna buy the actually discs, i just wanna know if there is any way of getting it running now so i can use a computer or if i gotta wait a couple days for the discs to come in the mail????
     
  2. trigga71

    trigga71 Regular member

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    Sounds to me like a bad burn, try and get a dvd image if you can, or just go buy tiger its only 129.00
     
  3. icyhandlz

    icyhandlz Member

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    Im prolly gonna buy off some mac site and get jaguar for 37 unfortunately on a college budget, 129 is alot of money. Thanks for the help tho. And do all g4's have dvd/cd-r cuz i had a dvd copy but nothing happened when i selected the c on startup it just booted up to the server log in screen like normal so i figured bad copy or doesnt read dvd's does anyone know???
     
  4. trigga71

    trigga71 Regular member

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    No most likely not, check the system profiler and look under ATA it should list your hard drive and cd-rom drive under that then click the cd-rom to view more info on it
     
  5. akaangus

    akaangus Regular member

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    You could always use a linux PPC live CD to make sure it boots, and also check your PMs.
     
  6. icyhandlz

    icyhandlz Member

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    alright, got a legitimate copy of jaguar, discs come in and i hold c nothing happens, this computer came off of a school network, so while i hold the c buttton down, it goes to the apple then dos running a bunch of lines of stuff i dont understand :), then goes to the login where you would normally but your student/teacher id and then password, and this is what its done since i bought it. Anyone have any idea what i gotta do here????

    thanks

    brandon
     
  7. akaangus

    akaangus Regular member

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    How many discs do you have? What do they say on each?
     
  8. trigga71

    trigga71 Regular member

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    ok sound to me you need to clear the PRAM (hold apple key, option key ,P,R key) at boot up. Wait for the second chime and releases the keys.

    But it still not booting to the CDs is odd, have you tried the "startup disk" under sys preferences?

    It may be an open firmware password?!?! here is a link to more info on it and how to remove it. i have never tried to remove an openfirmware password so i dont know how well it will work. but there is an app on that same website that says it will tell you the password. So might be worth a look

    OpenFirmware Password
     
  9. icyhandlz

    icyhandlz Member

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    I can not get onto the main mac os screen. The furthest i get is the login screen, because i bought it from a school, so it goes to the screen where you login your username then password for the school network. Thats the furthest i get, I bought 3 computers from the school and the first 2 worked when i pushed "c" as i started the computer, and it reformatted and i was good to go. This one wont allow me to do this. So I understand the thinking behind the open firmware password, but it is not asking me for an open firmware password, its just the school district network, and its asking for the student id/username and the password. So i cant get into the main osx screen to run anything and see whats up. Keep the ideas coming tho, i appreciate it greatly
     
  10. icyhandlz

    icyhandlz Member

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    but thank you trigga, i will give the open firmware a shot and post back if it worked or not. thanks. again
     

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