IBook upgrade

Amazingly, lots of other people are out there also covering this but if my blog helps just one person be successful I will be glad.

I had a 2004 G4 iBook in need of a new hard disk and found a decent price, while at it I planned to upgrade the memory to 768 from the original 512. Cost was about $80. But I wasn't sure where to start so I searched online and found lots of people have step by step instructions out there. I settled on www.ifixit.com as it also had a screw chart and clear pictures with tips and warnings. I am adding my own here, have a top quality set of tools. Poor quality screwdrivers could cause trouble getting out the multitude of screws. I fortunately only had 2 start to strip and had to find another method of removing them.

There however was no mention of what to do to install the new OS. I suspect they thought I would Disk Copy to the new drive and that would be that. I didn't want to go that route as the old drive had a lot of stuff that just wasn't needed and I wanted a fresh install so my daughter could have an easier time and faster response. I did find a forum with what I needed. So for those of you who are not used to the process. You will need to use the disk utility on the install disk to format the drive and then reboot from the install disk and before you begin the install. I was afraid I had really blown it until I found that post.

Ifixit calls this a "hard" job and they aren't kidding. There are 46 screws to keep track of on this job and 53 steps in the ifixit list (you have to do them in reverse to put it all back so it's really 106 steps in all). Still armed with clear instructions and warnings to take care and not break things, and to have an ice cube tray (thanks to an Apple Genius for that tip) to help keep all those screws straight, I tackled the job on Christmas Eve (the repaired laptop was to be a Christmas gift). I began about Noon and with breaks for fixing dinner, I managed the whole thing before 9:30 including doing a backup of the fresh machine so I can restore faster next time. I think the most time went into running updates after the fresh install (remember the install disks are 3.5 years old and there were 21 updates to install) and locating the software I felt she needed; Firefox, plugins, and NeoOffice.

All in all I am proud of this accomplishment but I don't recommend this job for the faint fo heart. next I get to fix a bad keyboard on a Compaq, looks easier but we'll see once the new part arrives.

It's been a while

I have to say I have had to leave the project to get Crossover Mac to resolve the need to have Windows on my beloved MacBook. I think I found what the issue is but I don't know enough about the code used to make the needed adjustments. All I can do is help find what the issue is.

Yes, I am admitting to running up against the limit of my geekiness. However, that doesn't mean that I am giving up on ever getting this working. I just think the Intel Macs are still too new to get this going yet.

I do have several other projects in the fire and those will be the subject of further posts.

Testing RSS feed issues

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Beta blues

I know Beta is frequently a term for stuff that doesn't quite work and in this case really doesn't quite work, though I really like Blogger Beta and Yahoo Mail Beta. It seems IE only runs in the Win98 bottle. I suspect that Win XP and even 2000 have too many subsets that are needed to work correctly and since those OS's are still supported Microsoft is being too tight with code to let them function anywhere but in a full Windows enviroment. So thank goodness for BootCamp. I can do all the stuff I need with Windows in a dual boot. Howerver I am still intregued by running Windows apps in bottles and the ease of moving from Mac app to Windows app, so I'm not ready to throw up my hands and give up. Besides that's not really my style. I'm more inclined to latch on and not let go until I resolve it.

So here's where things stand. IE runs in Win98 bottle and WMP 6.4 and 7.1 worked like a charm. Codecs all loaded flawlessly and I could still play my audio file. Then I stepped up to WMP9 and it does kind of work. When I click a file in IE, WMP 9 loads and even begins playing the file, but part way through I get the dreaded "We are sorry but WMP has encountered a problem and needs to shut down. We are sorry for the inconvenience." With only an OK button so there really is no option but to let it shut down. If I reopen WMP I get an Interent Script Error 80040154 which Microsoft Support has linked to missing Directx files. But although I ran that update it made no difference. Of course part of this is that I only have this running in the Win98 bottle and MS doesn't support 98 anymore for all intents and purposes. Since they still support 2000 and XP it would ge better to get the apps running there but I suspect the support is why it can run in 98 and not 2000/xp. Microsoft doesn't really care if it runs in 98, they don't support it. They do however support 2000/xp and they are trying to close all the loopholes that get exploited and thus have made getting all this to work in non-windows is nearly impossible. Note I still say nearly.

Starting again

Grrrrr!!!!! WMP 9 installed but crashes. After going through posts, this could be due to a failure caused by not installing some updates to codecs at the proper time. First I am gathering all related posts on installing and putting them in a doc for printing. I think my biggest complaint with CodeWeavers is the lack of a good search tool for the forums. It seems to be more of a hit or miss affair. With the search tool I don't find much but going through post by post, I am finding a lot more.

Anyway, I had to delete the win98 bottle and start again. So far only IE and WMP 6.4 are installed. But I can play mp3's from Noside so that's good. BTW, that's also how I finally removed IE fromt he XP bottle, just deleted the bottle.

Wow, I got WMP 9

But it doesn't work so I think I'll have to remove it. I will be checking for info in the forums first though. It's kind of weird. I want to remove IE in the WinXP bottle and there it will only let me repair it. Here I want to repair the application and it only let's me remove it. Silly program.

Some success, some failure

Okay, it seems there are some real tricks to this software and there are a lot of bugs to fix but I am getting the hang of it.

1. To install Windows Media Player you must first install Internet Explorer and use a request to play an mp3 file to force it to find Windows Media Player in the first place. I am now running Windows Media Player 6.4. When I check for updates I am being told that there is no update for it. Grrr!!
2. Internet Explorer will only install in the Win98 bottle not WinXP or Win2000. So-o-o-o, you can't get updates! Well, After a lot of stumbling around the Microsoft website I finally found a place I can get WMP9. Didn't work. I am now trying with WMP 7.10.00.3059. I had read from someone else that he had to go through this too. I think it is working as it is currently doing a simulated restart. Yeah, I win another round.
   
3. Of course, so far every upgrade I am getting is not moving me very far on the path to WMP9 or 10 for that matter but I am getting upgrades showing up in the list and they seem to be installing. In fact this last upgrade has really set me back as it seems I can no longer get WMP7.1 to play. Grrrr!!!! again. Time to try again.