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Level 1

20 points

iMac G3 won't boot to Mac OS 9 CD

My iMac G3 (slot-loading) has no OS on it right now and I'm trying to install Mac OS 9 from a Mac OS 9 retail CD I have. It's a full install CD, not an upgrade. So I power it on and it shows the question mark because it has no OS on it so I put in the Mac OS 9 CD and within a few seconds it spits the CD right back out and it will not boot to the CD. It has absolutely no scratches on it and I did a "repair disk" on disk utility on my other intel-based mac and it says the CD "appears to be ok" so why isn't it working?

1.66 Ghz Intel Core Duo Mac Mini & iMac G3, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 18, 2008 6:04 PM

25 replies

Jul 7, 2008 8:19 AM in response to Craigwd_2000

Update: I have found a firmware update by Apple for the iMac DV+'s & iMac DV Special Edition DVD-ROM drive. Do you have either of these two iMacs or is the previous year's model?

Jrtechn Author

Level 1

20 points

Jul 7, 2008 11:26 AM in response to Craigwd_2000

It's the iMac DV but I'm not sure if it's the special edition. It was manufactured in 2000 and has the 400 Mhz PowerPC G3, 10 GB hard drive (now upgraded to 80 GB), 64 MB RAM (now upgraded to 512 MB), and the Matshita SR-8184-B DVD-ROM drive (slot-loading). The color is blueberry/bondi blue.

That's all I know...

Jul 7, 2008 12:26 PM in response to Jrtechn

Here's a link to the Apple supplied firmware update for the Matshita SR-8184-B: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75111. If the updater doesn't work for you just tell me: there's another firmware updater available since the slot loading iMac DVs apparently shipped with the Matshita SR-8184 too. I'm not sure if that article corresponds to your drive or not but I think it does based on the correlation of the fact that the Power Mac G4 Cube was available starting in July of 2000 which leads me to believe that the firmware update will work since it's also labeled as being for the Power Mac G4 Cube too.

Mactracker allowed me to determine that your machine was made in early to mid 2000 with a DVD-ROM drive (probably a 6X/24X Matshita SR-8184-B).

Jrtechn Author

Level 1

20 points

Jul 7, 2008 1:41 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

That one didn't work either. The previous owner told me it was manufactured in 2000. But I have some doubts now because I took the bottom cover off revealing the logic board and it says
1999 Apple Computer Inc. on it. But I don't know if that necessarily means it was manufactured in 1999.

Jul 7, 2008 2:04 PM in response to Jrtechn

If it came with a 10 GB hard drive then it probably shipped with a slot loading CD-ROM or CDRW drive instead of a slot loading DVD-ROM drive. I have a Indigo iMac DV that came with a 10 GB hard drive & a slot loading CD-ROM drive so I'm guessing yours did too. Only the G3 CRT iMac DVs that shipped with a 13 GB hard drive or larger shipped with the slot loading DVD-ROM drive option.

I would not recommend buying a Matshita SR-8184-B until somebody notifies RPC1.org that their firmware download for the drive is offline. I'm seriously thinking about joining the site so I can tell them that the link is dead too. Their main page called "The Firmware Page" is now offline too.

Apparently they had a server outage so they have one less machine serving files/content now.

Jrtechn Author

Level 1

20 points

Jul 7, 2008 2:19 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

I don't know because I'm sure the DVD-ROM was the original drive in it. I used Mactracker on it and it's the October 1999-July 2000 model. So it technically is a 1999 model.

Jul 7, 2008 2:45 PM in response to Jrtechn

I would recommend running Apple System Profiler on it: look in the optical drive section of Apple System Profiler & tell me which optical drive it lists there. Since Apple's official SR-8184-B Firmware Updater didn't work on it I suspect it may be a Matshita SR-8186. If it is I can point you to a firmware updater that will work with it.

Jrtechn Author

Level 1

20 points

Jul 7, 2008 2:54 PM in response to Craigwd_2000

it's really strange. I checked system profiler and it gave me "MATSHITADVD-ROM SR-8184" but when I took out the optical drive it had a sticker on it that said the usual "manufactured to meet Apple specifications" and Matshita SR-8184-B.

Jul 7, 2008 3:08 PM in response to Jrtechn

I'm giving you the link to other official Apple DVD-ROM Firmware Update: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58557. The Firmware Update readme file says it requires exactly Mac OS 8.6 in order to update the firmware. The Power Mac G4 Cube specific Firmware Updater says it requires Mac OS 9.0.4 to Mac OS 9.1 to successfully update the drive's firmware.

Your profile says you're currently running Mac OS 9.2.2 for Classic Mode: I would recommend you reformat your hard drive after backing up all your files. I can't understand why the firmware updaters refuse to run under Mac OS 9.2.X either.

Jul 8, 2008 9:36 AM in response to Jrtechn

Try this. Insert the disk and turn off the computer before it has a chance to spit it out. Now turn it back on and press option until a bluescreen comes up. Give it a few seconds until the cd loads then click it and press enter. this should get it to boot from the cd properly

iMac G3 won't boot to Mac OS 9 CD