"Vintage" PowerBook 180!!!!

[virusys]

I recently purchased an old PowerBook 180 off of one of my friends for a reasonable price*. The problem is, the boot disk it came with was damaged, and there were too many errors on it to read. neye:

Anyways, I know that System 7.1 is the earliest OS I can put on it, however I can't figure out how to boot my PowerBook from a floppy!!

Anyone have any ideas??

(I know this isn't a classic mac forum, but I was just hoping)

*One dollar canadian.

 

[dtravis7]

I have a PB 170. You need an OS 7 or so boot disk. I should have one here you could boot from but how to get it to you. I take it your 180 has a hard drive?

 

[technologist]

I recently purchased an old PowerBook 180 off of one of my friends for a reasonable price*. The problem is, the boot disk it came with was damaged, and there were too many errors on it to read. neye:

Anyways, I know that System 7.1 is the earliest OS I can put on it, however I can't figure out how to boot my PowerBook from a floppy!!

Anyone have any ideas??

(I know this isn't a classic mac forum, but I was just hoping)

*One dollar canadian.

It should try to boot from whatever floppy is in the drive at power-on. That floppy must be bootable (Mac formatted, with a valid System folder).

http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/

http://www.lowendmac.com/pb/180.shtml

 

[lil]

I seem to recall there was a disk repair or network related disk available from Apple's support section that was bootable. I'd recommend System 7.5.3 on it as when I had my PowerBook 180C; it ran that and very well I might add.

I'll see if I can find the disk in question!

Failing that I think I have a System 6.0.8 set of disks (2 IIRC) buried away here somewhere one of which is bootable which should allow you to start the System 7.5.3 Installer; of course you will need to transfer the images painstakingly!

That said, I really cannot remember if the PBook 180 can boot System 6.0.8l; and as you note, System 7.1 is the earliest version it can take.

Failing all of this, I'll try and make you a boot disk You will need to write it to a floppy mind, as I have a IIfx buried away somewhere and Basilisk II running as well... :flower:

Vicky

 

[dtravis7]

The Powerbook 180 and 180c take from Mac OS 7.1 to 7.6.1. Like Lil said 7.3.5 is a good version to use on the 180. The newer versions want more RAM, so it depends on how much ram is in the machine.

Like I said in my other message to you, If you can't find on the net a Bootable floppy image I could pull out my 170 and make you a boot disk. I will do some looking around and see what I can find on the net.

 

[virusys]

Wow, thanks for the replies! I thought this would be a dead forum. I took a look at that 7.5.3 OS, but the only problem is that it has 19 disk images =\

I guess I could invest in a whole bunch of floppy disks to revive this old machine....

Ps, dtravis7 and Vicky, no need to mail the floppy disk all the way out to me, just send all the data if you want over the net.

 

[rs2sensen]

I have a PB 170.

I swear, you have every old mac ever made. Never surprises me when you say "I have this one" lol. Good guy though, appreciated all the help you gave my with my B&W G3s.

 

[dtravis7]

The PB 170 was my first and up till now, only Mac Laptop. Got it used years ago but never had the heart to sell it. It still works perfectally too after all this time.

 

[lil]

The PB 170 was my first and up till now, only Mac Laptop. Got it used years ago but never had the heart to sell it. It still works perfectally too after all this time.

I remember when the 100s, 140s and 170s came out, I even wanted one very badly then as at school (yes I was eight at the time!!) we had a Macintosh SE/30 and I loved using it (hence the inevitable) and so when I eventually got hold of a 180c in early 1999, I was a very happy bunny. Sadly it got sold when i had to clear out a lot of my old computer stuff when I moved from home. Numerous Macintoshes and Amigas had to go in that cull!

Anyway without further ado, I found the disk image you need from Apple to boot the System into 7.5; it's called the Network Access Disk.

You can get it from:

http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...osh/Utilities/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.sea.bin

This will boot System 7.5, allow you to format the the 180's hard disk, and copy over the 19 parts of the 7.5.3 installation.

HTH :flower:

Vicky

 

[lil]

Hi,

I have fiddled with that boot image into a file that can be written to a floppy disk. As much as this saddens me, you will need a Windows PC with a floppy drive to make this easy :dummy:

Hehe.

So, download this from my website:

http://www.lilserenity.com/netboot.img

Download HFVExplorer if you don't already have it, a google search will reveal it.

Pop a floppy drive in your Windows' PC's floppy drive, a standard HD diskette.

Open HFV Explorer.

From the File menu, select Write Volume to Floppy.

Click the '>>' Select the netboot.img in the file open requester that appears, wherever you downloaded it to.

Click OK.

Confirm any window that opens that says it will wipe the disk or whatever by clicking OK.

HFVExplorer will write the disk in standard Mac HFS format. When it is done, eject the disk, pop it in the PowerBook 180; switch on the 180 and fingers crossed :flower:

Vicky

 

[virusys]

I've found some system 7.5 install disks that are in very good condition, which makes me kind of feel guilty for having you run around and find all of those things for me Vicky!!

Up until this point, there was no spinning on the 180's hard drive, and whenever I started it up there would be an image of a diskette with a question mark on it. I put in Disk 1 of the install (out of seven) and the computer booted up like it should. It opened the installer for OS 7.5, however it doesn't recognize a hard drive on my computer!!! (It says that the only thing to write to is the floppy, which is impossible).

The really weird thing is that I restarted my computer, and lo and behold I heard the spinning of a hard drive. Only this time, the hard drive keeps spinning and there is a mouse on an empty screen, and it doesn't matter if I put floppys in or out of it. What is going on ?

 

[virusys]

Correction.... my computer did start up normally (asking for a disk) but the problem remains that it doesn't recognize the hard drive.

That means I have a bad drive. Darn.

 

[dtravis7]

Correction.... my computer did start up normally (asking for a disk) but the problem remains that it doesn't recognize the hard drive.

That means I have a bad drive. Darn.

Sorry I did not get back sooner but lil handled it very well and you found what you needed.

I bet the Hard Drive has problems. You need a laptop SCSI drive. I would sugest Ebay. It will have to be a laptop size drive that is SCSI. If you can not find one on Ebay I do have my old drive out of the 170 that works great but I upgraded to a 250Meg drive for more room. I could let you have it for just postage if I can find it. Ebay might have something though even larger in Megs.

 

[virusys]

Sorry I did not get back sooner but lil handled it very well and you found what you needed.

I bet the Hard Drive has problems. You need a laptop SCSI drive. I would sugest Ebay. It will have to be a laptop size drive that is SCSI. If you can not find one on Ebay I do have my old drive out of the 170 that works great but I upgraded to a 250Meg drive for more room. I could let you have it for just postage if I can find it. Ebay might have something though even larger in Megs.

Wow! That's very generous! Check your private messages and PM me back so I can send you some info. I already checked Ebay and found nothing so far. Could you save an old mac?
:dive:

 

[lil]

I've found some system 7.5 install disks that are in very good condition, which makes me kind of feel guilty for having you run around and find all of those things for me Vicky!!

Not a problem :flower: I still sort out a few 68K Macs these days, and other bits and pieces so it's all handy bits for me to have in my own 'diagnostics and repair' folder if you will.

You'd be surprised at the number of people who still use System 7.x based Macs for Quark 3/4, PageMaker etc., and if they have any problems I'm usually called upon as I still 'support' them. Thankfully Apple has an excellent support section on their website to back this up.

I myself still boot into System 7.5.3 now and then on my IIfx (currently packed away) and when I am forced with no choice to use my Dell laptop (due to be sold now) Basilisk II (68K Mac emulator) is used

And to think a mere 4 years ago I was still doing all my Mac stuff on the IIfx (Word 5.1, Claris Works, Photoshop 4 and System 7.5.3, as well as Internet Explorer 3 at the time, and other stuff I forget). That said, I also emulated the Mac on my Amiga 3000 (long story but it died in 2001) which had a 66MHz 68060 - a processor never used in the Mac (fastest was the 50MHz 68040 using the Sonnet Doubler) and for many years in the transitional 68k/PPC era that was faster than most Macs going. The faster 604 Macs (180MHz) running Mac OS 8.5 changed that though. Still, I still find that impressive now looking back.

Anyway... when you get that PowerBook 180 working, you will probably find it surprisingly useful with the right software. Shame about the poor battery life (NiCad batteries IIRC), but as a machine for say Claris Works up to v4 (Claris/Apple Works 5 IIRC is PPC only) or Word 5.1/Excel 4 and such like, it's fun and useful.

I'm still waiting on finding a good 540/550 model 68K PowerBook - the best of the 68K PowerBooks.

Have fun!! :flower:

Vicky

 

[JackHarrison]

Help me!

Hi I have the same problem! I'm not very good with computers or anything like that and I now can't find a start up floppy disk anywhere!! I know it's 2012 and this machine is really really old but is there any way i can get it up and running again??