How do I get an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?

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mike - 03 Nov 2006 14:51 GMT

How can I install an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?

I have hardware.
NO SOFTWARE, none, nada nothing.
The nice guys at Mac Genius plugged on a firewire drive and it seems to
work.
But how can I get an OS on it?
It shipped with OS 9.1, but there seems to be no sanctioned avenue to
acquire
the disks for same. The machine came with a license to use it, just
can't find any
way to get it. No, I don't want to buy it again...I already bought it.
Just want it
back after a HD crash. NO, I don't have install disks.

If I found install CD's, can I just copy them with nero? or do they
have copy protection etc???
I'm a total MAC newbie. I have no other mac hw or sw.

Ok, no problem, I'll just install linux.
Tried a couple of ppc distributions. First line of the instructions
is, "Insert your MAC setup disk..."
Grrrrr!!!!

Are there any free linux distributions that will boot from the CD and
install.
HD is only 1.3GB, so one that installs a lot of bloatware will be
problematic.

Thanks, mike

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John Johnson - 03 Nov 2006 16:54 GMT

> How can I install an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> Just want it
> back after a HD crash. NO, I don't have install disks.

Another option would be to eBay some OS X 10.3 disks. 10.3 will run fine
on your machine, and is more stable than OS 9. Older versions of OS X
eBay relatively inexpensively if you have a bit of patience. OS X also
gives you all sorts of BSD goodness, expose (which is _really_ handy),
built-in pdf viewer and save-as pdf.

Signature

Later,
John

johajohn@indianahoosiers.edu

'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

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Laurent S. - 05 Nov 2006 00:42 GMT

*** Re: How can I install an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?

Your HD is too small for OSX 10.3. So get OS9.1; it should
work fine. Here's how:

--- Go to a kind soul who runs a G3 or G4 powerbook (= PB) under OS9
(preferably a PB not younger than yours). If you cannot find a PB host,
settle for another G3 or G4, one having "Mac OS ROM" in its system folder.

--- Startup your PB with Apple+T pressed. This turns your PB into
an external Firewire drive for the host PB. Your HD should come up
normally on the host machine.

--- Drag-copy an OS9 system folder from the host machine HD to your HD.

--- Use the Startup Disk control pannel to designate the copied OS for
startup.

--- Disconnect your PB and restart it normally...

(This recipe will fail with OSX in place of OS9 unless you artfully use Disk
Utility of (of OSX >= 10.3?) to do the system copying.)

You'll soon want a HD of >= 40Go.

Cheers

Laurent S.

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mike - 05 Nov 2006 12:27 GMT

Thanks for the input. I'm totally MAC ignorant, so I've got stupid
questions.
My hard drive has windows partitions on it. If I hook it to the mac,
can the mac
copy the files and subsequently, my mac boot from my drive?

Seems like there oughta be a BUNCH of steps before the dragging???

I've been trying to load linux.
Several linux installs start with, "insert your mac CD and repartition
your drive".
Can the donor mac partition my mac drive?

I guess if I find the kind soul, it would be just as easy to copy the
CDs.
So far, kind souls have been in short supply in my neck of the woods
;-)
Thanks,
mike

> *** Re: How can I install an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?
>
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> Laurent S.

Reply to this Message

John Johnson - 05 Nov 2006 13:52 GMT

> Thanks for the input. I'm totally MAC ignorant, so I've got stupid
> questions.
> My hard drive has windows partitions on it. If I hook it to the mac,
> can the mac
> copy the files and subsequently, my mac boot from my drive?

Let's clarify a few things here.

Your PowerBook as a hard disk in it with _____ total capacity? You said
1.?GB, but now I'm not sure whether you're talking about a single
partition or the whole thing. Laurent was quite correct that 1.?GB is
too small for OS X. However, if you've got a 6 GB drive, and are willing
to run only one partition, you can fit OS X on the disk.

Your other(?) machine is a Windows box. Windows machines won't help at
all here; you need another Mac that's got OS 9.1 on it to do what
Laurent suggested.

> Seems like there oughta be a BUNCH of steps before the dragging???

Well actually, no. That's one of the nice things about the "Classic"
(pre-OS X) OS. You can just drag stuff around and it pretty much works.

> I've been trying to load linux.
> Several linux installs start with, "insert your mac CD and repartition
> your drive".
> Can the donor mac partition my mac drive?

Any Mac with a drive utility can partition the drive on your PowerBook,
provided you've set the PowerBook into FireWire Target mode. In that
mode (the only thing on the screen will be a large FW symbol), your
PowerBook is (so far as the other machine is concerned) simply an
external HD. It's a nifty feature.

> I guess if I find the kind soul, it would be just as easy to copy the
> CDs.

Perhaps; OTOH, if the kind soul _also_ doesn't have the CDs, copying the
OS is easier. ;-)

Signature

Later,
John

johajohn@indianahoosiers.edu

'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

Reply to this Message

mike - 06 Nov 2006 03:51 GMT

> > Thanks for the input. I'm totally MAC ignorant, so I've got stupid
> > questions.
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> 1.?GB, but now I'm not sure whether you're talking about a single
> partition or the whole thing.

I put in TOTAL 1.3GIG, 'cause that's all I had. The info I found on OS
9 said it
would do a full install on 400MB. That oughta work.
Problem was that the system didn't seem to recognize the disk. SO, I
reluctantly
pulled a 20GIG drive out of another laptop and stuffed it in. Now, the
system recognizes
that it has a drive.

Laurent was quite correct that 1.?GB is

> too small for OS X. However, if you've got a 6 GB drive, and are willing
> to run only one partition, you can fit OS X on the disk.
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Well actually, no. That's one of the nice things about the "Classic"
> (pre-OS X) OS. You can just drag stuff around and it pretty much works.

You're saying that I can take a mac with a random hard drive with
random
foreign partitions and formats...plug it into a working mac and drag an
icon.
The working mac can mount the foreign partitions, load the software,
reconfigure
the boot process and figure out what to do to make all that work
without any
manual intervention.
I'm truly in AWE of MAC.
Can't wait to try it myself.

> > I've been trying to load linux.
> > Several linux installs start with, "insert your mac CD and repartition
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> Perhaps; OTOH, if the kind soul _also_ doesn't have the CDs, copying the
> OS is easier. ;-)

Agree, until it comes time to put the 20gig drive back into my real
laptop and
redo the MAC. I've got several 1.4gig drives that should work.

One more question. The powerbook is pretty much a doorstop without
a wireless card. And I'm not about to spring for an Airport card.
Are there particular versions of PCMCIA cards that have drivers for a
MAC?
I've got an Avaya/Orinoco Gold card that seems to have universal
support
for DOS and Linux. But haven't found the Apple drivers yet.

Thanks, again for the inputs. I'm having a lot of fun amidst all this
frustration.
Can't wait until I start to look like the "cool guy" in the TV
commercials ;-)
mike

> --
> Later,
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> 'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

Reply to this Message

Fred McKenzie - 06 Nov 2006 17:48 GMT

> You're saying that I can take a mac with a random hard drive with
> random
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> manual intervention.
> I'm truly in AWE of MAC.

Mike-

I don't think he said exactly that! You may need to do some
reformatting.

> One more question. The powerbook is pretty much a doorstop without
> a wireless card. And I'm not about to spring for an Airport card.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> support
> for DOS and Linux. But haven't found the Apple drivers yet.

I have the Orinoco Silver Card that works with the Airport drivers in OS
9. Yours is probably compatible, and may also work with an OS X driver
available from
http://sourceforge.net/ . Another source of Mac wireless drivers is
http://www.ioxperts.com/ .

Fred

Reply to this Message

JohnB - 07 Nov 2006 20:21 GMT

> One more question. The powerbook is pretty much a doorstop without
> a wireless card. And I'm not about to spring for an Airport card.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Thanks, again for the inputs. I'm having a lot of fun amidst all this
> frustration.

Mike

The gospel for older machines and OS9 is at...

http://www.penmachine.com/techie/airport1400.html

--
JohnB

Reply to this Message

mike - 08 Nov 2006 04:42 GMT

> > One more question. The powerbook is pretty much a doorstop without
> > a wireless card. And I'm not about to spring for an Airport card.
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> --
> JohnB

Thanks,
I did manage to get SUSE running...sorta. It can recognize my Avaya
wireless card,
claims to be connected to the windows network...but can't see my
windows computers.
I messed around trying to configure it and managed to lose the
connection capability.
Sigh...
I need to buy a linux book. ;-)

Still no success obtaining OS9.
mike

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Neill Massello - 07 Nov 2006 21:12 GMT

> Are there any free linux distributions that will boot from the CD and
> install. HD is only 1.3GB, so one that installs a lot of bloatware will be
> problematic.

The Mercury shipped with a 10GB or larger hard drive, and it's not too
difficult to replace the drive in a Titanium PowerBook.

Reply to this Message

mike - 08 Nov 2006 05:03 GMT

> > Are there any free linux distributions that will boot from the CD and
> > install. HD is only 1.3GB, so one that installs a lot of bloatware will be
> > problematic.
>
> The Mercury shipped with a 10GB or larger hard drive, and it's not too
> difficult to replace the drive in a Titanium PowerBook.

Difficulty is not the issue...it's the cost. If I had an extra 10G
disk, I have three
other laptops in line ahead of the PB to receive it.

If I read correctly, OS9 takes 400MB for a full install. Why won't
that work on a 1.3G drive?
I can always upgrade the disk if I decide to add stuff.

But it doesn't really matter if I can't find a way to acquire the OS9
bits to put on it.
Consensus appears to be that it's legal for me to run OS9 on the
machine.
It's legal for me to have a backup copy of the CD. There's just NO WAY
to acquire same...without buying it AGAIN.
mike

Reply to this Message

John Johnson - 08 Nov 2006 05:43 GMT

> > > Are there any free linux distributions that will boot from the CD and
> > > install. HD is only 1.3GB, so one that installs a lot of bloatware will be
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> to acquire same...without buying it AGAIN.
> mike

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you've pretty much covered your options:
1. buy OS 9 again. This is not cost-effective.
2. instal OS X. The purchase of the OS is inexpensive (and therefore
cost-effective, particularly given what it gains you), but requires a
larger HD than you've got in it, and costs money.
3. Install a larger HD. This costs money.
4. Someone you don't know sends you a copy of their OS 9 build. This
will almost certainly cost money.
5. Someone you know allows you to copy their OS 9 build. You don't know
anyone with OS 9.
6. Sell the PB or put it on a shelf until something (either a 4th HD
larger than 6GB plus an OS X set or an OS9 CD set) falls into your lap.

So, we eliminate 1-4 on the basis of cost. That leaves #5 which you've
apparently tried without success. #6 is quite do-able but is rather
unsatisfying.

The only thing that I can suggest at this point is to find your local
MUG and see if someone there's got an OS 9 install sitting in a closet
somewhere. Apple's webpage has a MUG-finder on it...somewhere. I always
have to use the site-map to find the user-group section, and go from
there. Sometimes you find such things at resale shops (e.g. Goodwill,
trinity mission, salvation army, etc.) and garage sales, but you really
just have to put in the hours if you want to do it that way.

I honestly can't think of any other options at this point.

Signature

Later,
John

johajohn@indianahoosiers.edu

'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

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Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / November 2006

How do I get an OS on my Powerbook G4 Mercury 500MHz?