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PowerBook 520 can't boot 7.1.1

cjtmacclassic

Well-known member
Hey everyone,
Some years back I was given a PB520 with System 7.5.3 running on the default 4MB of RAM. It was fiendishly slow.
Recently, I've been attempting to install System 7.1.1 with the appropriate 500 series enabler. The installer operates without a problem, and during the installation the system gives every impression of being perfectly functional.

After installation, and for every reboot thereafter, the boot will not proceed beyond the "Welcome to Macintosh" dialog, at which point startup comes to a halt and the dialog box begins to flicker. Booting with extensions disabled brings no improvement.

Something early on in the boot process is going awry, but I'm not sure what. This is, as far as I can tell, the appropriate installation media, which I prepared on a different 68k machine using disk copy and floppies. While the image files were downloaded, this was done in a closed "old Mac" environment with resource forks, etc. intact.

Disassembly has yielded no clues. Is the backup battery critical to boot? Aside from this, I'm at a loss as to why it can't fully boot.

Dropbox link to the issue post-installation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdhm7ytfir29cus/IMG_3427.mov
 

mdeverhart

Well-known member
It could be worth zapping the PRAM if you haven’t already. press apple-option-p-r right after pressing the power button and hold it down until the machine reboots a couple of times (multiple chimes).
 

cjtmacclassic

Well-known member
Update: Fixed the issue. I learned I can boot from Disk Tools instead of just using it for the install process, and formatted the disk after repairing it failed. Doing this and repeating the install resulted in a working installation.
 
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