No Hard Drive, No Problem! (OK, Some Problem)



Thanks https://PCBWay.com – I’ve had this G3-upgraded PowerBook 2400c with a totally fried IDE controller for a while now. It’s great in every other respect. So, let’s SHOW it some respect, and get it booting from a PC card! But… can we install OSX!?

VIDEO LINKS:
🍎 The PC Card adapter thing: https://amzn.to/3NKobBS
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#Shenanigans #PowerPC #Macintosh

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26 thoughts on “No Hard Drive, No Problem! (OK, Some Problem)”

  1. My Thinkpad from 95 eats those CF card readers up! I don't know why but they always just stop working and I have to get a new one every couple months.

    Reply
  2. Interesting ! I have trying to install Mac OS X on a PowerMac G3 beige at 266Mhz desktop model for a video. I have the same message : "can't open, can't open…" And after many many trying to install OS X on the G3 beige, the last message was a black screen with many codes in hexadecimal, kernel version… and writing finaly : "we are hanging here…". Just after that, the power supply of G3 was dead. I search a new power supply for to restart the machine and reinstal Mac OS 9. Normally the G3 beige can accept Mac OS 10.28 max. I noticed many many problems with old machines on G3 cpu : for example, I had many problems for install Mac OS 10.39 on a Ibook G3 Clamshell blue model firewire at 366Mhz. It was very difficult. And on two Imac G3 Slot Loading at 350Mhz models, the machines are just dead after to try install Mac OS X. On PowerBook Wallstreet too, very difficult to install Mac OS X. I finally reinstall Mac OS 9 on the machine. So, I don't understand the problem. Perhaps to made a upgrade of firmware before install Mac OS X or other ? If someone can help me or answer me. Beforehand, thank you very much. 🙂

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  3. something tells me XPost will work if you use an adapter on the IDE bus and still use a CF Card. I think someone else suggested that. Also MacOS 10 has to be in the first 7GB of the drive.

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  4. I haven't watched the video yet but if you install Linux to a thumb drive you can just stick the thumb drive in a computer and use it however you need a second thumb drive if you want to save any files because anything you do will get deleted.

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  5. That's pretty cool that your 2400c is so upgraded. I heard that Apple designed the machine with the intention of releasing the G3 upgrade themselves, but that never happened so third-party upgrade makers stepped in. Sadly my 2400c doesn't have any such upgrade, and the RAM definitely isn't maxed out either. It is good to know it can boot of a CF card though. I had been meaning to install one of those mSATA to 2.5" IDE adapters with an SSD, like I used in my Powerbook G3, but perhaps I'll just pick up a CF to PCMCIA adapter instead. Actually, I think I've got a PCMCIA to SD card reader around here someplace, I wonder if that would work instead?

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  6. Wait wait. You can boot a Mac from a CF card via PCMCIA?!?! I have a Pismo G3, so is there a chance that Transcend TS0MCF2PC adapter would boot faster from a CF card than the spinning rust HDD that's in there? Why didn't I ever know this before?!! If that will work, I just might have to try it….

    Reply
  7. I use frogfind on my windows 10 computer sometimes, I like how stripped back it is. An issue has cropped up for me though, some hyperlinks don't seem to work.

    I looked into it myself and it's hyperlinks that link to subdirectories. Say I'm on a page with the directory of /documents and then I want to look at a page about carrots, but the hyperlink just points to carrots instead of documents/carrots*. Typical web browsers will go to */documents/carrots*, but frogfind will go to the directory of just */carrots and will then throw an error saying "incomplete HTML" because it's looking at a 404 screen.

    Reply
  8. Ah, OS X on a 2400. It's a fun project. I find 10.2 is the best version since it has the best video card support on these. I recommend either solid state storage or a CSS-type hard drive because OS X was really hard on disks back then. Of course, Sleep mode still doesn't work under any version of OS X, but since most of the batteries on these are kind of dead anyway it's not so much of a concern anymore. But I have several spares for the 2400. If you're really itching to get a good one, maybe we can work something out.

    Reply
  9. Wish i could have made it to vcf southwest. I'm only a couple hours away but it happened to be on the busiest weekend I've had in months. Excellent video as always

    Reply

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