Thanks...I'm still at it!
Hello all, thanks for your input... This little project was on the backburner for me for a while, but I spent a good part of the weekend working a bit...
I removed the HDD, which contrary to everything I heard about it, was actually rather pleasant and interesting. Its not the hardest thing to do, I've never taken one apart but was at the HDD in under an hour...if you don't count the 45 minutes I spent on the one screw I stripped...was that a pain!
If anyone without experience wanted to upgrade the HDD or something else that deep inside, don't shy away! Its not that tough! Just make sure you get a decent set of Torx screwdrivers and be careful on each size driver you use, that's how I stripped a philips, they all seemed about the same and I hadn't changed the bit and screwed myself...bad pun intended.
So. I got the HDD out, and I was able to power on with the bottom casing removed. I got about the same results as before, but I figured I might be better off with the disk out if its making wierd noise, and I noticed that even though I couldn't boot from DVD, it was quicker to not boot from DVD than with that god-awful HDD still rattling.
I bought my machine used with panther already installed, so I have no apple discs, but i did get a release of finnix and ubuntu for PPC. When loading through the DVD with the HDD installed, the machine chimed up, and powered off after a minute or so, thing is, as soon as i removed the HDD and plugged it back in to AC, it started right on its own, but still no boot.
It wouldn't boot without the internal HDD either.
Next, i took my Firewire hard disk enclosure and connected my DVD burner to it. I put each of my PPC linux distros in and booted with C, nothing, booted with command+option+shift+del and i got to the screen with a refresh and a next button and eventually the same cd logo with a little penguin came up for each disc with a FW logo under. Beyond clicking the cd and then clicking next, I don't know what to do. It comes right back to the same screen, but sometimes with the FW logo, next button and CD logo a little distorted from the original image, like there was a negative of the colour for the FW logo and the CD had some little lines in it. If i keep clicking next, after the 3rd or 4th time, it comes up with an HDD logo (despite no HDD internal or external) and I click next and still get nothing.
That's the long story.
Essentially, I would be ever-grateful if I could get some more feedback from the folks on this board if someone could indicate the following:
Can iBook G3 dual usb 500 MHz boot up anything Live with no internal HDD present? Is there some sort of open-firmware setting that requires 2 devices on the IDE bus? I only have a bad drive to connect there, so if it is necessary, I will go out of my way to get one to test.
Next, with the strange colour distortion that I mentioned, could this be indicative of other problems..like logic board failure
When I tried booting from my Linux CDs in the DVD rom of the iBook, I got the folder/? looking for bootable volume screen, but again, after reading the cd, it went to either a graphically glitched folder/? or another one that I havent seen where the folder resembles more like a folder you would see in Windows with the ?/Mac face in it.
I've zapped my PRAM and I don't know if its supposed to give the low pitched whistle then chime when you do that, or if its supposed to give a straight chime. It did the whistle, then chime when I tried.
Thanks for all the input you guys have given towards my cause. If any of the above is indicative that my machine would make a good door-stop or paper-weight, please do not hesitate to let me know. Otherwise, as long as there's a chance this may come back to life, I'll go on with my stubborn as hell ways and keep at it till I throw it out a window or something...I might be getting close.
Kyle.
