Re: Help an idiot

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>]

On Sun, 2003-09-14 at 14:33, Justin Davies wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I seem to have been an idiot:
> 
> I have a copy of SLES 8 for PPC variants and my powerbook (G4 12")
> didn't like the first CD, so I copied yaboot, yaboot.conf, the kernel
> and the initrd over to my powerbook and went into OF without a problem
> to boot the kernel and do the installation.  Problem was that when I
> loaded yaboot that was included on the SLES disk, I think I may well
> have screwed up something in my powerbook, as yaboot did not run, and OF
> gave me a weird error message.  Firstly, sorry as I did not write down
> the error message it gave, but it loaded the yaboot executable but did
> not run it, just gave an error, or it could well have been a status
> message.
> 
> What I have now is a brick of a powerbook, as the machine will turn on,
> but will not boot, I cannot even get into OF to see what is happening,
> and anything that Apple support said over the phone did not work
> (various key combos to reset the NVRAM etc).  The machine powers up, as
> I can hear the DVD in the drive spinning, there is not "chime" or
> anything like that.
> 
> Has anyone heard of this before ?  Is there a fix apart from sending it
> to Apple for repair ?  
> 
> A few other things:  
> 
> Holding down c at bootup will not work
> OF access will not work
> Opt-Apple-P-R will not work
> 
> The screen is blank, not flicker or anything.

I don't think you damaged it, it's possible that you just triggered
a dormant HW damage... 

There are 2 remaining solutions: The Power Manager reset (there's a
small button for that below the kbd on the titanium powerbook; I don't
know where it's located on the 12" G4, though Apple has a technote),
and the backup firmware.

The later (backup firmware) is triggered by using the same key combo
as for a firmware update. I don't remember exactly which combo it is
for your model, probably something like keeping cmd-power down for more
than 5 seconds during boot or something around those lines. You should
hear a double boot shime, on which you can then do a cmd-opt-P-R

Ben.