powerbook reformat please help

[SublimeProgie]

i am trying to reformat this guys powerbook g4 and i cant even get it to boot from the cd, i hold c the whole time it is turning on, and it just boots to the hardrive. the origional problem is that his applications arent running correctly. they wont even open. perhaps this has something to do with the installer not opening, i dont know.. any help will be greatly appreciated.

thanks
sp

 

[yellow]

Need more info.

Which PB G4, specifically?
What version of OS X is installed, specifically?
What version of the CDs are you trying to boot from, specifically?
Are they retail installer CDs/DVD or the installers that came with it or something else, specifically?
Does he have an Open Firmware password set on the PB (that will prevent from booting to a CD)?

 

[SublimeProgie]

it is a p 1.5 ghz

osx 10.3.33

Im booting from the origional powerbook g4 os x install cd and as far as i know there is no password

 

[yellow]

it is a p 1.5 ghz

osx 10.3.33

Im booting from the origional powerbook g4 os x install cd and as far as i know there is no password

There's no such animal as a 1.5GHz PowerMac G4, unless it's got an upgraded CPU in it? If so, which model of Mac is it?

Boot holding down Option and see if the CD shows up in the list. If it does, select it when click the Right arrow. If it still boots to the HD then (most likely) your Mac either won't boot of the installer (it's the wrong one), or it's OF password protected. In that case, you need to talk to the owner of the Mac to find out if he turned on the OFPW.

 

[Nuc]

There's no such animal as a 1.5GHz PowerMac G4, unless it's got an upgraded CPU in it? If so, which model of Mac is it?

He said Powerbook not PowerMac....

Insert the disk in to the PB and then go to the disk and click on the install OS or something like that and then it should restart automatically without holding down the c button. If this doesn't work then I don't know what else you can do because you already tried the c at startup. You could go buy a copy of Tiger and install that...

Best of luck

Nuc

 

[yellow]

Indeed he did, which somehow I missed between my first post (correct) and my second post (incorrect).

One thing we don't know is if it's a 17" PB (which this would be the correct installer DVDs) or the 12" PB (which this would be the INCORRECT installer DVD).

 

[SublimeProgie]

it is a 17 inch, is there any terminal code that anyone knows to boot from disk? that would be great if that were the case. and when i click on the image that says install mac osx it pops up for an instant then closes itself


thanks for all the suggestions so far

 

[yellow]

And when you boot holding down Option, does the CD show up as a selectable boot option?