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Powerbook 150 Boot Disk and General Questions

Snial

Snial

Well-known member
Hi, just to recap: does the PowerBook 150 need special 68K IDE HD drivers, or does the standard 68K driver you might find on an IDE HD on a 68K Mac work? I'm asking this, because I really think the best solution for tapetinkerer is to get an IDE to SD adapter and a USB to IDE 2.5" adapter. Then they can copy the beginning of my 750MB HD image (which I have saved) onto the SD card via a USB to IDE 2.5" adapter and dd (using Linux, I used a Raspberry PI). Once the driver is on ... at least with enough sectors to define the partition map including the IDE driver (which is on one of the partitions), then Disk Tools should work.

I'm keen that tapetinkerer is able to get their PowerBook 150 to work, because I once did have access to a PowerBook 150. The display was fairly rubbish, but the trackball was great and of course, it was the earliest (or least powerful) powerbook to use IDE.
 
3lectr1cPPC

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
The drive I have in mine was formatted on a PowerBook 1400, so I’d assume that they’re the same based on that.
 
Snial

Snial

Well-known member
3lectr1cPPC said:
The drive I have in mine was formatted on a PowerBook 1400, so I’d assume that they’re the same based on that.
Click to expand...
Great, my original IDE drive image (saved) is also from a PowerBook 1400. However, when I upgraded to Mac OS 8.0 or 8.1, I believe it updated the drivers to PPC. So, my original image can be used (or maybe yours!)
 
T

tapetinkerer

Member
Thanks for the input, I am looking for the least most complicated option, and most likely to succeed. I had a lot of unsucess trying to get an old Ipod updated with a CF card. I may stick to a getting a new old hard drive, unless I can get the old one apart or there is an easy method of using an IDE to SD adapter.
I dont have linux, I have a G3 with system 9.1 and a G4 with X10.4.
 
T

tapetinkerer

Member
I got the hard drive changed to the 1GB one out of a 1400, I booted with the tools disk and could see the contents of the old drive on the desktop, nothing would open because everything was from the 1400, I went to initialize the drive but was unable to, disk tools wanted to repair the drive so I let it, then I just chose erase disk from the special menu which worked fine, it shows as an empty disk on the desktop with 1GB free space.

I started the easy install of 7.5.0, it was going ok, swapped disks 1 and 2 a few times then it gave me an error message, is this likely to be a floppy problem or drive problem, would a custom install help if I deselected something?

The 7.5.0 floppys were made with Disc Copy 4.2 on the G3.
 

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T

tapetinkerer

Member
So I got another new second hand USB floppy drive because I kept getting the error message around disk 2 of the instalation, thinking it was a drive issue.
I burned the set of 7 disks of System 7.5 again and this time got to disk 4 before giving the error, (it gave the error just after swapping back to disk 1 after disk 4)
So I tried System 7.01 and got the message 'This startup disk will not work.. use the latest installer to update this disk. tried System 7.1 and got the same message.
Anyone know what system will definitely work on a PB150 and where I can get the images, currently Im using MacintoshGarden. Thanks.
 
thecroc15

thecroc15

Active member
You can try downloading the "Legacy Recovery" iso CD image from Macintosh garden on your G3, and then browse the disc by computer model to make install floppies with diskcopy 6.x. 7.5 should work fine, but it will also point you to the right version of 7.1. You will need to install any old version of Toast to mount an ISO in OS9 (which you can also get from the garden).

It sounds like you might have a problem with the floppy disks themselves? When it gives an error over a particular disk do you put it aside or try to reuse it?

If your G3 is one of the Beige ones, a serial cable could let you do the install over localtalk. If the Legacy Recovery disc is mounted and file sharing is turned on on the G3, and your PB150 boot disk has appletalk and the chooser, you could mount Legacy Recovery on the 150 and run the installer on the PB via localtalk.
 
A

A24A

Active member
tapetinkerer said:
So I got another new second hand USB floppy drive because I kept getting the error message around disk 2 of the instalation, thinking it was a drive issue.
I burned the set of 7 disks of System 7.5 again and this time got to disk 4 before giving the error, (it gave the error just after swapping back to disk 1 after disk 4)
So I tried System 7.01 and got the message 'This startup disk will not work.. use the latest installer to update this disk. tried System 7.1 and got the same message.
Anyone know what system will definitely work on a PB150 and where I can get the images, currently Im using MacintoshGarden. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hello,

You will find the supported system versions here:
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP145?locale=en_US
Please note that the minimum version is 7.1.1 and a PowerBook 150 Enabler.

Instead of using a normal set of system floppies, you could begin by creating just one bootable floppy with a valid system folder. For example, a Network Access Disk 7.5:
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...osh/Utilities/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.sea.bin
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...cintosh/Utilities/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.txt
You could try to do that directly on the G3 (which exact model?) under Mac OS 9. Use StuffIt Expander for the decoding. Use Disk Copy 4.2 in order to make a sector-copied floppy from the contained disk image (the Make A Copy button):
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...osh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/Disk_Copy_4.2.sea.bin

The NAD 7.5 floppy can be used to boot the PowerBook 150. If you want to free the floppy drive for subsequent transfers, you could try to drag-copy the NAD 7.5 system folder to the (empty) hard disk. It should then be possible to boot the PB 150 from this (temporary) system.

Later, you could download nineteen System 7.5.3 files and transfer them (one by one on a 1.4 MB floppy; or via LocalTalk/serial cable as suggested by thecroc15) to the hard disk. See also the following text file:
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...ystem_7.5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_Info.txt

The files:
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...7.5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_01of19.smi.bin
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl....5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_02of19.part.bin
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl....5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_03of19.part.bin
and so on (just change nnof19), until
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl....5_Version_7.5.3/System_7.5.3_19of19.part.bin

The nineteen (decoded) files are then placed in one folder (that is, one .smi and eighteen .part). When ready, double-click on the first file. The actual System 7.5.3 installation takes place from the mounted large image.
 
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tapetinkerer

Member
Thanks guys. The set of disks the second time was a different set. My G3 is a blue and white. I will try the NAD and 19 files and report back. Just trying to figure out why I keep getting the error.
 
A

A24A

Active member
Just guessing here, but could it possibly have been a temporary power problem with the USB floppy drive while writing the disk images to floppies? I assume that you were making sector-copied disks via the Make A Copy button in Disk Copy 4.2. Sometimes, a USB floppy drive may require a powered USB hub.

EDIT: On second thought, probably not, since the disks would not have passed a verification test...

Anyway, with the suggested method, only the NAD 7.5 needs to be made via DC 4.2. For the nineteen files, a plain transfer will be used. You could choose whether to decode the MacBinary (.bin) on the blue and white Mac OS 9 G3 before copying the files to floppies, or later on the PB 150. I would choose the latter (which, of course, would require a transfer of something like a decoded and ready-to-use StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 or 5.5 to the PB 150 once the NAD 7.5 system folder has been established as a bootable system on the hard disk). It is always good to keep the .bin encoding as long as possible.
 
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T

tapetinkerer

Member
It worked !!!

I'm guessing it was a floppy disk issue, as when I was making the disks after reusing the same one I got an error after about 6 uses.
I used and booted from the NAD, copied the 19 files to the PB , extracted them with stuffit 4.5 on the PB, then it mounted the install CD image.
I assume this is a better/larger copy of 7.5 than the 7 floppy disk version.
The pictures came out a little purple for some reason, the screen is very grey, only thing is there is some wierd shadows going on with the edges of folders.
Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to help get this up and running, now I just need to pick some software to go on it.
 

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S

shiroi

Member
No, the PowerBook 150 uses PowerBook Duo memory modules. It’s an oddball as it was based on the Duo’s architecture rather than a cost-reduced version of the other 100-series.
 
T

tapetinkerer

Member
So it seems I need this part M3179LLA and a duo memory expansion card, is there anyone still selling these besides the one on ebay for $100 which doesn't seem to include the expansion card brace.
From the manual ''If you have more than 4
MB of RAM, you can create a RAM disk to help maximize battery
life. '' Is this the same as virtual memory, I have a 1GB hard drive, does system 7.5 support virtual memory?
 
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