[jptrsn]

Hello,

I am the new owner of a PowerBook G4 laptop. It was previously owned by my grandfather, who recently passed away.

Unfortunately, the computer has a lot of problems. Disk Utility cannot verify disk permissions, there is a lot of OS 9 stuff on it, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The biggest problem is that the optical drive does not function at all. I believe that my grandfather used an external drive, but I do not have one. We do have another mac (an iBook G4) with a fully functioning optical drive and OS X installed.

I would like to know if it is possible to boot the PowerBook from a disc that is inserted into my wife's iBook. Alternatively, is there any other way that we can reformat and reinstall the os? I believe that it would solve a lot of problems to do this.

Thanks!

[VegasACF]

You could mount the drive on another (FireWire equipped) computer as a FireWire drive and do whatever you need to do from there. Connect the two computers via a FireWire cable. Hold down "T" while starting up the PowerBook and you'll see a FireWire logo appear on the screen. The drive in the PowerBook should appear on the desktop of the host machine as just another hard drive. Be sure you drag the PowerBook drive to the trash before you disconnect them so it unmounts (dismounts?) the drive properly.

If you're unsure whether your PowerBook will start up in FireWire target mode do a dry run. Hold down "T" while starting it up on its own. If the FireWire logo appears you're good to go.

[jptrsn]

That's great! I'm very happy to hear that I don't need to purchase an external drive to reformat my computer.

Do you know what type of firewire cable I will need? I have seen 6-pin to 4-pin, 4-pin to 4-pin, etc. I have never used firewire before, and I do not want to end up purchasing the wrong cable.

Thanks again for your help!

[VegasACF]

I think it's 6-pin to 6-pin. Look at the FireWire port on your computer(s). Get the one with ends that match those.