CD-ROM does not mount

Thanks for all the replies in this topic - I thought I ought to come along and say that I am no longer in posession of the Mac in question - I managed to get it working, more by luck than judgement - and I have now given it away.

I have a similar problem. my cd-rom won't mount. system profiler shows no media. do i have to change any jumpers in the computer or on my hard drive. a microsoft formatted disk will come up w/a message saying this disk is unrecognizable. it won't read mac disks or audio disks. i can't tell if it is working

Hi, andre -

a microsoft formatted disk will come up w/a message saying this disk is unrecognizable.

That would normally indicate a problem with File Exchange and its associated software.

Be sure the File Exchange control panel is active in Extensions Manager, and that these extensions are present in the Extensions folder -

Apple CD/DVD Driver

Apple Photo Access

Audio CD Access

Foreign File Access

ISO 9660 File Access

UDF Volume Access

Good luck -

I think it may be the drive itself. i can hear it clicking
away when i put in a disk. when i got home i used my hp cdwriter plus usb burner w/toast and i am able to get all my disks played with that. sometimes the message comes up and i can hear the drive trying to read the disk but most times the drive won't even spin.

Hi, andre -

You might try cleaning th4e drive, in case it's got some dust in it obstructing the lenses. A standard cleaning disk for an audio CD player should work fine.

yeah, i tried that last night but the drive won't even spin
the disk.

HI, andre -

Check the cabling going to the drive - make sure none of the connections have loosened, particularly the ribbon data cable.

It is beginning to sound like the drive itself has failed.

yeah the drive failed. i got another one and it works just fine. I started to suspect that it had to be the drive itself when the usb burner worked just fine. thanks for all your help.

Hi, andre -

You're quite welcome - glad you got it working.

can any you or anyone else tell me the max specs for the imac g3 233mhz? I am talking about areas such as maximum harddrive, etc, etc. I have been on the specs page but I think that newer technologies outdate the page.

Hi, andre -

Max RAM for that machine depends on whether it is a Rev. A or Rev. B model -
Rev. A - - 256MB
Rev. B - - 512MB

Unfortunately I do not know how to tell the difference between the revisions - perhaps someone else will post in with that.

Max hard drive = 128GB. This is a hardware limitation of the built-in ATA controller. Since iMacs do not have PCI slots, there is no way to add a better ATA controller.

Related to that, there is a hardware limitation on the early iMacs such as yours - all OS's must be placed within the first 8GB of the drive. This means any drive 8GB or larger must be partitioned such that the first partition is a bit less than 8GB - 7.7GB is a reasonable limit - and all OS's installed onto that partition.
Article #25249 - Gray or White Screen After Hard Drive Upgrade

As far as OS's go, it can use any version of OS 9, and any version of OSX up through OSX 10.3 (Panther). It can not use OSX 10.4 (Tiger) or later.

Important - before installing OSX or even booting to it, make sure the firmware on it is current, per those available for downloading from this Apple KBase article -
Article #86117 - Firmware Updates

thanks, fry's is selling a 160gb for $39.00. i did not know of the 8gb limit and i thought i could not install panther. it is getting very hard to find osx; can i just buy panther or jaguar and just load those? is there anything aside from memory that can be changed in the machine? lastly which usb wireless device can be used with this computer?

Hi, andre -

thanks, fry's is selling a 160gb for $39.00.

That will appear as a 128GB capacity drive on that machine.

can i just buy panther or jaguar and just load those?

Yes - be sure to get the retail package, and not a model-specific set. And, be sure the firmware on the machine has been updated.

is there anything aside from memory that can be changed in the machine?

Not much. I believe that folk like Sonnet may offer a CPU upgrade for it, and perhaps a firewire port add-on for it.

which usb wireless device can be used with this computer?

I'm not familiar with those; perhaps someone else who is will respond.

Hi Don,
I am having a similar problem. I am working on my MIL's iMac 333 running OS 9.2.2. She bought a new printer and it requires OSX, so I finally have to upgrade her to 10.3. However, the CD-ROM drive is acting up. It will read a couple of CDs that I have written, but not the important ones - I've tried my Norton disk, some iMac system boot disks, my OSX disks, etc. It spins and sounds like it's working, but nothing ever mounts. I've checked my extensions folder as you've stated here, and they're all there. Why would it mount some, but not all? Any suggestions? -suzanne

Hi, suzadgraph -

Welcome to Apple's Discussions.

Odd that it will read and mount non-commercial disks, but not commercial ones nor the ones that shipped with it.

Make sure the extension Apple CD/DVD driver is in the Extensions folder.

If you've installed Toast, disable Toast's CD Reader extension.

You might also try cleaning the lenses in the drive; an accumulation of dust can cause strange behavior. A standard cleaning disk for an audio CD player should work fine for that.