Hey. I'm mainly a Linux/x86 guy, but I started collecting old laptops a while ago and I now also own 3 Apple laptops. One modern-ish 2013 MBP, one PowerBook 1400c, and most recently, one Titanium Powerbook G4 (1 GHz).
It came with a broken power supply and no harddisk. But that's no big deal since it's an IDE machine like most of my others so I had solid state replacements ready. And I upgraded the power supply board with a USB-C connector (more details later if people ask for it).
The optical drive is also broken, but I don't like having to burn cd's or dvd's if I don't really have to anyway. So I did the same thing as I did with some other laptops, and I figured out how to run PowerPC VM's in qemu on my modern laptop, and did the installation there, with the CF card in a USB card reader, attached to the VM.
So I installed 10.2.x and 9.2.2 on it, moved the CF card into an adapter in the machine, and it worked fine.
Then I started learning more about the machine and how it came with a 60 GB harddrive, and I happeed to find a 64 GB mSATA ssd for cheap, so I redid the installation on the new disk using the same method. I happened to have an IDE-mSATA adapter lyring around somewhere and that worked fine as well.
Here it is working perfectly fine.
At some point I was playing around with also booting and installing several Linux distro's and that also worked fine for a while.
Until at some point it didn't. It didn't see its disk anymore after I moved it back and forth between machines. Even though I did the exact same thing as I did multiple times before.
I tried the CF card again, and it also did not work. I tried both cards on my modern machine, and I could read them just fine. I could boot from them in the VM, and it seemed fine. So both of my disks are not damaged, an the data is not corrupted (or at least not very much). I also tried the disks witht heir IDE adapters and an IDE-USB adapter to make sure the adapters aren't damaged (those IDE pins always have a tendency to bend when unplugging) but those are also still fine. I tried a bunch of other basic troubleshooting, but there's not much I can think of to mention here.
The machine still works fine in all other ways I can detect. It can still boot from USB (honestly impressive for a machine from 2002 - even though the usb 1.1 speeds make this almost useless). This means that the power supply, display, keyboard, firmware, memory, and anything else I can think of aren't damaged.
I did a PRAM reset (cmd+opt+P+R). No difference. I tried removing the (very dead) PRAM battery module entirely. No difference. I tried letting it sit in a drawer for a day, no difference. I tried cleaning the connectors between the main board and the flat cable and the adapter boards with a 70% alcohol wipe, and again with 99% IPA and a tooth brush.
I even tried the original hard disk from my (6 years older) PowerBook 1400c with MacOS 8.6 on it. That also fails in the TiBook, but works fine in the old PowerBook 1400c and also in a VM on my new machine.
I also did some poking around in OpenFirmware, and when I look at the devices in
The weirdest thing: it worked again exactly once after breaking, when I unplugged the optical drive for the first time during troubleshooting. But not ever again since that one time.
So, the main question here, is there any known issue that could explain my problem? Is there any troubleshooting step that I should try?
My main suspect is the ribbon cable between the main board and the IDE drive. I can find replacements on ebay, but those are almost $100 and that's not something I can afford. I also found this one for a lot less, but it looks slightly different and it might not fit, it might even be a sligtly different connector on the mainboard side.
It came with a broken power supply and no harddisk. But that's no big deal since it's an IDE machine like most of my others so I had solid state replacements ready. And I upgraded the power supply board with a USB-C connector (more details later if people ask for it).
The optical drive is also broken, but I don't like having to burn cd's or dvd's if I don't really have to anyway. So I did the same thing as I did with some other laptops, and I figured out how to run PowerPC VM's in qemu on my modern laptop, and did the installation there, with the CF card in a USB card reader, attached to the VM.
So I installed 10.2.x and 9.2.2 on it, moved the CF card into an adapter in the machine, and it worked fine.
Then I started learning more about the machine and how it came with a 60 GB harddrive, and I happeed to find a 64 GB mSATA ssd for cheap, so I redid the installation on the new disk using the same method. I happened to have an IDE-mSATA adapter lyring around somewhere and that worked fine as well.
Here it is working perfectly fine.
At some point I was playing around with also booting and installing several Linux distro's and that also worked fine for a while.
Until at some point it didn't. It didn't see its disk anymore after I moved it back and forth between machines. Even though I did the exact same thing as I did multiple times before.
I tried the CF card again, and it also did not work. I tried both cards on my modern machine, and I could read them just fine. I could boot from them in the VM, and it seemed fine. So both of my disks are not damaged, an the data is not corrupted (or at least not very much). I also tried the disks witht heir IDE adapters and an IDE-USB adapter to make sure the adapters aren't damaged (those IDE pins always have a tendency to bend when unplugging) but those are also still fine. I tried a bunch of other basic troubleshooting, but there's not much I can think of to mention here.
The machine still works fine in all other ways I can detect. It can still boot from USB (honestly impressive for a machine from 2002 - even though the usb 1.1 speeds make this almost useless). This means that the power supply, display, keyboard, firmware, memory, and anything else I can think of aren't damaged.
I did a PRAM reset (cmd+opt+P+R). No difference. I tried removing the (very dead) PRAM battery module entirely. No difference. I tried letting it sit in a drawer for a day, no difference. I tried cleaning the connectors between the main board and the flat cable and the adapter boards with a 70% alcohol wipe, and again with 99% IPA and a tooth brush.
I even tried the original hard disk from my (6 years older) PowerBook 1400c with MacOS 8.6 on it. That also fails in the TiBook, but works fine in the old PowerBook 1400c and also in a VM on my new machine.
I also did some poking around in OpenFirmware, and when I look at the devices in
dev / ls and I don't see any ATA devices in there. (note: I also do not see the optical drive, I'm not sure if it's supposed to show up without a cd/dvd inside).The weirdest thing: it worked again exactly once after breaking, when I unplugged the optical drive for the first time during troubleshooting. But not ever again since that one time.
So, the main question here, is there any known issue that could explain my problem? Is there any troubleshooting step that I should try?
My main suspect is the ribbon cable between the main board and the IDE drive. I can find replacements on ebay, but those are almost $100 and that's not something I can afford. I also found this one for a lot less, but it looks slightly different and it might not fit, it might even be a sligtly different connector on the mainboard side.
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