02-18-2012, 06:28 PM

Hi guys,
I know that some of you are now laughing at the very idea of buying one of these old iBooks but I had my reasons, two of which were a mobile match for my Mac Mini and the low price. But there's bad news. The seller has been unreachable since the sale which has thrown up a few issues all by itself.
On the plus side, the 800 mhz G4 iBook running 10.3.9 is in fabulous condition with hardly a mark on it and with a battery that lasts for 5 hours. It has 256 mb of RAM as a base and I have a second 256 stick ready to install. The bad news is that the laptop is registered to the seller and I don't have any passwords that may be needed, software updates for example.
The name registered with the laptop is virtually identical to the seller's eBay name which is about 3 years old so I don't suspect any foul play there. however, that's not my biggest problem. That belongs to Safari.
I can use the icon in the dock to log into Safari and once I had sorted out a connection to our Home network, that side of it was a breeze. The big problem is going anywhere else.
For instance, when I'm on the Google web page and type something into the Search bar, for example, "Firefox", when I click the Search button or click on the ENTER button the screen reverts to my desktop screen and I get a message box saying that "Safari has unexpectedly closed down". This happens no matter what I type in the Search box.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Steve.

02-18-2012, 06:39 PM

One thing I noticed when working on an older G4 iBook with 10.3.9 Panther. Safari is getting so old, many sites either won't go in or crash the browser. That could be your issue. You say Google search goes in?

02-18-2012, 07:08 PM

Look for full retail install DVD of Tiger OS X.4, a black disc and not the silver/grey model specific discs, format the drive, install Tiger and set up with your own admin account. If the 'book only has a CD drive, Tiger was available on CD in early days of its release but it may take some finding.

02-18-2012, 07:30 PM

Travis ... Yes. That's why it seems so strange. Google is not the Home Page and I can type "www.google.co.uk" into the Address bar, click ENTER and the Google page pops up.

Harry ... Tiger would work in this laptop if I add the extra RAM (theoretically) but I'd hate to buy Tiger and then find that it still throws a wobbler.

Is there anything that I can do that will kind of take the iBook right back to how it was just after the OS was installed?
Thanks for the replies, guys. Got to go now but I'll check back in the morning.

02-18-2012, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by 5tevie

Is there anything that I can do that will kind of take the iBook right back to how it was just after the OS was installed?

Alas, no. Not without the original re-install disk(s) provided with the machine (which the seller has presumably not supplied you with). OS X didn't have the capability to create a restore partition on the HDD back then (indeed, no OS at the time did).

If the worst came to the worst - the current install became unusable, and you couldn't find the appropriate install disks for a contemporary version of OS X - you could probably find a PowerPC port of a neat little Linux distro to run on it; but - obviously - you want a Mac, not a Linux PC, so that would only be a last-ditch suggestion to stop your purchase being a total waste of money (that said, if you did later find the relevant install media you could always re-install OS X over Linux).

Good luck!

02-20-2012, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by 5tevie

Is there anything that I can do that will kind of take the iBook right back to how it was just after the OS was installed?

Actually, yes. Sorta: Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD — Apple News, Tips and Reviews

Just follow the terminal commands seen there, and it will create a new administrator account and the Mac will boot as if it's brand new. (Intro movie and everything)

Also, for the meantime if you can't afford or find a Tiger CD try the Camino web browser. Safari for Panther is ancient, and it's so outdated the websites are probably crashing it.

02-21-2012, 06:46 AM

I stand corrected!

02-21-2012, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by MacDude121

Actually, yes. Sorta: Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD — Apple News, Tips and Reviews

Just follow the terminal commands seen there, and it will create a new administrator account and the Mac will boot as if it's brand new. (Intro movie and everything)

Also, for the meantime if you can't afford or find a Tiger CD try the Camino web browser. Safari for Panther is ancient, and it's so outdated the websites are probably crashing it.

I use this all of the time on my trash picked/ Craigslist find macs to see what applications I can get off of them before restoring them.

02-22-2012, 05:42 PM

I got an iMac G3 this past November that had only CD drive, no reinstall discs, and after I set to Tiger on it after getting it, I forgot my admin password, and I printed out this "reset admin password without OS X install discs" trick and it worked. I was able to create a new admin acc't and I deleted the old acc't.