[iBook] Panther Installation

[Tom R. no spam]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008, Peter Nevett wrote:
 . . .
> Is it possible to start up the iBook from the OS9 CD, format the hard
> drive and then try to install Panther? I have backed up the iBook but
 . . .

Do check the firmware (as someone else suggested).

Also try booting from an OS9 installer CD, and
use the Drive Setup utility (I'm not sure of the
name, it's been so long) to zero the HD while
formatting as HFS+, ie choose the option to write
zeros over the entire drive.  Among other things
this should force a check for bad HD sectors, etc.
Then boot from the OS 10.3 installer CD and use
its Disk Utility to format the HD again but just
do a simple format, no zeroing. (I'd recommend
choosing HFS+ journaled format, available with
OS10.3., since it gives some protection against
various errors during computer use.)

This OS9 zeroing, then OS10.3 format again, trick
has worked for me a couple of times working on
old CT iMacs.