Mac OS X Installation Trouble

[wolfiefrick]

Hello,

I'm a bit new here, so if there's already a solution to this problem that I'm not aware of, please let me know!

So, I am a bit of a retro Mac nerd. I own a bunch of G3 and G4 Macs, and I recently picked up my first snow iBook G3. It runs Mac OS 9.2.2 beautifully and installs it without a hitch. However, when I insert a Mac OS X 10.1 installation CD, before it can even boot to the install screen, it kernel panics on the happy Mac logo. So, I tried installing 10.2 Jaguar. This worked, but when I tried to boot into the operating system after installing it, it kernel panicked about 3 seconds after the Apple logo appeared on the screen. When I installed 10.3 Panther, it worked a bit better, but there wasn't even a kernel panic when I tried to boot into the OS after installing; it just froze on the Apple logo and wouldn't do anything for hours.

Is there a firmware update that I'm missing? Should I try installing 10.0 Cheetah?

Thank you!

 

[BrianBaughn]

Do you know exactly which model it is? Check everymac.com for the latest OS version it can run (it might be Tiger 10.4.11).

Firmware updating might be needed and you would have to do it in OS9.

Get the model, check the current firmware number, and search online for possible updates.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Hello,

I'm a bit new here, so if there's already a solution to this problem that I'm not aware of, please let me know!

So, I am a bit of a retro Mac nerd. I own a bunch of G3 and G4 Macs, and I recently picked up my first snow iBook G3. It runs Mac OS 9.2.2 beautifully and installs it without a hitch. However, when I insert a Mac OS X 10.1 installation CD, before it can even boot to the install screen, it kernel panics on the happy Mac logo. So, I tried installing 10.2 Jaguar. This worked, but when I tried to boot into the operating system after installing it, it kernel panicked about 3 seconds after the Apple logo appeared on the screen. When I installed 10.3 Panther, it worked a bit better, but there wasn't even a kernel panic when I tried to boot into the OS after installing; it just froze on the Apple logo and wouldn't do anything for hours.

Is there a firmware update that I'm missing? Should I try installing 10.0 Cheetah?

Thank you!

I had a very similar problem with my G4 iBook - it was the very common Airport Card connector issue (broken joint). I had to remove it before I could install the OS.
I understand the G3 iBooks had similar problems with their graphics chip.

Another similar case I had was a Powerbook that could happily run Tiger but couldn't install Leopard. The culprit was a bunch of bad sectors on the disk where the extra bulk of Leopard was attempting to install to. The fix was to install Tiger then write a 10Gb "blank" file to trap the bad sectors.

 

[wolfiefrick]

Do you know exactly which model it is? Check everymac.com for the latest OS version it can run (it might be Tiger 10.4.11).

Firmware updating might be needed and you would have to do it in OS9.

Get the model, check the current firmware number, and search online for possible updates.

I just checked the model number. It's an A1005 iBook G3 (Dual USB) from late 2001. It has a 600 MHz G3 and 640 MB of RAM (maxed out for this particular model). 20 GB hard drive, and an AirPort card.

How exactly do I check the firmware number? I tried booting into Open Firmware (Cmd + Opt + O + F) but I wasn't sure which number was the firmware version. I do have a working Mac OS 9.2.2 install CD so I can get that working.

I had a very similar problem with my G4 iBook - it was the very common Airport Card connector issue (broken joint). I had to remove it before I could install the OS.
I understand the G3 iBooks had similar problems with their graphics chip.

Another similar case I had was a Powerbook that could happily run Tiger but couldn't install Leopard. The culprit was a bunch of bad sectors on the disk where the extra bulk of Leopard was attempting to install to. The fix was to install Tiger then write a 10Gb "blank" file to trap the bad sectors.

So should I remove the AirPort card, or purchase a new graphics card? The model I have has an ATI Rage Mobility 128 with 8 MB of VRAM.

 

[Dronecatcher]

So should I remove the AirPort card, or purchase a new graphics card? The model I have has an ATI Rage Mobility 128 with 8 MB of VRAM.

It wont be the Airport card in yours as it's a different format - I was just using my case to illustrate the point, that on your machine it could be the graphic chip going faulty in the same way. They are not replaceable - I think people with that problem have tried reflowing the solder to fix the connections by heating the motherboard.
This is just guesswork - could be the hard drive, could be another hardware issue.

 

[KawaiiAurora]

@wolfiefrick I highly doubt it's the GPU as OS X has booted on defective GPUs, even with no GPU (well, a card with a PC ROM), for me. I would blame it on the hard disk to be honest. I'd suggest trying Linux or installing OS X on a pen drive (is it even doable?). That would eliminate the hard drive issue. You can simply replace the hard drive if you have a spare one.

It could also just be the motherboard playing tricks on you..

 

[Dronecatcher]

@wolfiefrick I highly doubt it's the GPU as OS X has booted on defective GPUs, even with no GPU (well, a card with a PC ROM), for me. I would blame it on the hard disk to be honest. I'd suggest trying Linux or installing OS X on a pen drive (is it even doable?). That would eliminate the hard drive issue. You can simply replace the hard drive if you have a spare one.

It could also just be the motherboard playing tricks on you..

On my defective iBook I could load a Linux live disk no problem - the key was no wifi drivers were installed, so the OS didn't try to initialise the Airport card. The OSX install disk would freeze and crash as soon as it found the Airport card.

 

[KawaiiAurora]

On my defective iBook I could load a Linux live disk no problem - the key was no wifi drivers were installed, so the OS didn't try to initialise the Airport card. The OSX install disk would freeze and crash as soon as it found the Airport card.

Yeah, I know that Linux won't prove much but if Linux doesn't work, the problem is probably deeper. I wonder if the OP has a firewire drive they can boot from. Couldn't the OP try Tiger too?

 

[wolfiefrick]

Yeah, I know that Linux won't prove much but if Linux doesn't work, the problem is probably deeper. I wonder if the OP has a firewire drive they can boot from. Couldn't the OP try Tiger too?

I could try Tiger; I have a disc. However, this iBook only has a CD-RW drive, and it can't recognize my Tiger DVD. Was Tiger ever distributed on CDs?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, at the time, you could swap out the Tiger DVD for a set of 4(?) CDs. The CD set is pretty rare.

 

[MagicBoy]

Can you get a shot of the kernel panic? Would help narrow down the potential cause.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I could try Tiger; I have a disc. However, this iBook only has a CD-RW drive, and it can't recognize my Tiger DVD. Was Tiger ever distributed on CDs?

Tiger on 4 CDs available here:
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc

 

[spf2]

You could also make a bootable USB drive that you can use to install from. You'll need another Mac with a DVD drive to create the bootable USB drive.

http://all4naija.blogspot.com/2012/05/make-mac-os-x-bootable-installation-usb.html

 

[wolfiefrick]

Tiger on 4 CDs available here:
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc

Perfect; thank you! I'll get to that soon. I'm currently upgrading the hard drive, so I can definitely try installing at some point next week.

You could also make a bootable USB drive that you can use to install from. You'll need another Mac with a DVD drive to create the bootable USB drive.

http://all4naija.blogspot.com/2012/05/make-mac-os-x-bootable-installation-usb.html

Can G3s even boot from USB? The model I have only has USB 1.1, and using it to install Tiger would be horrendously slow.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, booting to USB is possible. It requires an open firmware command, but will work.
And, yes the USB 1.1 will mean that you can track the install with a calendar.
Much better with the CDs, and even better, use a firewire external hard drive to create a bootable installer partition.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Can G3s even boot from USB? The model I have only has USB 1.1, and using it to install Tiger would be horrendously slow.

Yup, they can, and it's about as fun as you think it would be. I installed Leopard on my G4 tower back in the day by imaging the DVD to a external HDD, then booting from that; I ended up letting the install run overnight, and it finished midway through the next day.