Fix an Apple Ibook laptop

lunes, 9 de agosto de 2010

Fix an Apple Ibook laptop

Open a apple laptop is harder than open a PC laptop. For the 1st time is important to check the assembling/disassembling procedures:

http://www.sterpin.net/uk/ddibookg4uk.htm

http://repair4laptop.org/disassembly_apple.html

Info about boot fromUSB

Change Harddrive

The harddrive have 4 black screws in the sides to adjust, you must remove from old hd and put in the new, (screwdriver is torx).

Partitioning.

Moreover the included utilities you can use:
*Disk Utility. included, use from a cd/dvd you can select a scheme of 2 or 3 partition in a easiest way, (only HFS format).
*DiskStudio 1.6. same options than DiskUtility (only HFS format)
*Drive Genius 2. repartition, clone and other functions.
*iPartition. repartition, create partition in many formats.

Clone HD
There are some apps for clone to HD or Image file
*Carbon Copy Cloner aka CCC(backup to bootable image file, too slow to clone from usb to ide)
*Clone X (only clone to hd or bootable DVD/CD, faster than CCC)
*CopyCatx (only clone)
*SuperDuper! (Clone to image file)

Fix Screen wires
A common fail in Ibooks is on the the screen wires,one or more wires can be broken.

Software utilities
There is a utility dvd in Internet called "Bootable Ultimate Image 1.2" full of system apps. (Be careful with license and copyright)

Openfirmware as apple BIOS
How to access: press the key combination of "Command"(apple key) + "Option" (alt printed in key) + "O" + "F"

COMMANDS

devalias (shows defined alias)
dev / (move to the tree, /=root)
ls (shows the current branch of the tree)
pwd (show the current path in devices tree)
.properties (show data from the current device in the tree)

Default boot device on Apple Ibook is "hd:,\\:tbxi"
The command ¨boot¨ without arguments will use the default device and the arguments can be such as:
[device]:[partition],[path][filename]

Example of devices(using alias and not)
usb0/disk
ide0/disk
scsi-int/sd@0
hd(alias)
cd(alias)
pci@f4000000/ata-6@d/disk

hd is a alias to pci@f4000000/ata-6@d/disk

VARIABLES
setenv: environment variables
printenv: variables
Interesting variables:
output-device (name of output device for OF console)