Mac users

I noticed there really is not a section for Apple products on this forum. Thought i would just give it a shot.

I have about 15 Powerbook G4's here at work that i am fixing and reloading OS 10.5 Leopard on. All the Powerbooks are 1.67 G4 CPU, 2gb ddr2, and have a superdrive. The issue that i am having with 1 of them currently is that i first tried to install the OS on the machine. I was able to boot off the DVD with no problem. Formatted the partition and started installing the OS. I skipped the "checking disk for errors" deal , and just went strait to the install. (for time reasons). After the install got to about 90 percent it bombed out on me and said there was a "Problem reading the disk". Being that my work room is in the back of a warehouse that is connected onto a electronic recycling center, it gets very dust and dirty at times. So i cleaned the disk off and noticed that some gunk from a sticker had got on the bottom of the DVD. After i did this i tried the install again. The Powerbook wouldn't even try to boot off the DVD when i held down the "C button" on the keyboard to boot off it. It just spit the DVD out.

After doing some reading i found that u can hold down the "option" key at boot and it will come up with a "boot menu". I popped the DVD in and it found it. Then I had it boot from the DVD.

What I get now is after booting off the DVD it just hangs at the apple logo screen acting like its trying to load the disk, But nothing happens. I wondering why its doing this or is the Super Drive broken, or maybe some gunk got on the lense ?

I have had a similar thing happen on iMac's in the past but i just got pissed and junked them.

Odd thing is that i have used this same DVD to load about 4 other Powerbooks today without a problem, plus 1 before i loaded the problem G4.

If there is any Mac users out there that mess with these frustrating creatures let me know your input.

Thats what my last resort is going tobe. Its just a huge pain in the ass to replace a drive. Unlike most Notebooks where the Optical Drive is somewhat modular , this isnt the case with crApple. You have to take the whole freaking notebook apart and it takes about 30-45 Minutes todo so.

(Superdrive is a DVD-RW for Apple.)

After posting the issue on the forum I decided togive it one more shot and for some reason it just magically booted off the freaking Disk and started to install. its about 70% done installing so once i hit that 90% mark we shall see.

I honestly like using these powerbooks once they get up and running. They are nice to cruise the internet on and just do basic computing and stuff. OS 10.5 is really slick. I have one at home that I "borrowed."

Besides that, having todo service on these things is a nightmare. I would like to shoot the SOB that designed this crap.

I have a really awesome pic on my blackberry of one of these powerbooks that i destroyed. Lol the lady told me toget the disk out of it cause it got stuck. So i did with a Hammer and a ScrewDriver for leverage. haha

Glad you got it working, no matter the process taken.

Apple computers weren't designed to be serviced, remember - they simply want their users to get a new computer (doesn't every notebook company?). They were designed to look pretty; though I've never liked the design of any Mac I've ever encountered. Looking pretty and being serviceable don't exactly go hand-in-hand.