From my experience, the process is extremely inconsistent and varies from one machine to another. I’ve been waiting to install an OS for 2 weeks! I used my Mac mini btw, somehow both my Macs have working optical drives. I don’t even have all the tools to do that. I thought my only course of action would be to remove the HDD and install an OS using my Mac mini.

My USB DVD burner did not show up as a boot device either (works for my Mac mini, I don’t think it can get enough power out of the iBook). The 3GB HDD just stopped booting entirely the other day, probably due to the weird thing I did which basically converted jaguar into OS 8.6 since I couldn’t get a single CD to boot. Inside of my iBook however, is a booting OS 9.2.2 CD! I thought the CD Drive was broken, and I had a serious problem because my iBook does not have FireWire (nor do I own any FireWire stuff), and I swear usb booting is a myth at least on the original iBook 300MHZ I have. To the left of me is TWELVE CD-R coasters of 8.6-10.2.

Mac os burn iso to dvd