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iMac G3 Boot problems?

Hello, everyone. Sorry if the amount of detail incorporated into this post turns out to be rather dull, I just woke up. Anyways, I recently bought an iMac G3 (specs below)off craigslist. It works fine, but I made a mistake recently.

700 MHz
1gb ram
80 gb hdd
slot loading cd drive (burns / reads cds)

It came with 10.4.11, and it also had a mac os 9 system folder. The last time I had a mac, and I put os 9 on it with a system folder, I recall booting into os 9 without problems. However, I set the boot disk to the system folder, and now I am stuck at a floppy disk with a blinking question mark. I have not been able to find a way to get back into os x, and any attempts to boot from a cd from open firmware have returned the following error:
---------------------------------------------------------------
boot cd method <load> not found; ihandle=0 phandle=0 adler32=1

LOAD-SIZE is too small
ok
---------------------------------------------------------------
If I boot from either xubuntu 6.06, or the first disc in the Tiger installation series, it will do this. Same with the OS9 cd.

Any help?

If you'd like more detail, please ask.

iMac G3, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jan 27, 2011 3:43 AM

Reply
13 replies

Jan 29, 2011 12:57 PM in response to Donzieja

Seems like you are going to have to find an external firewire 400 cd/dvd reader. It needs to be bootable. You can disassemble an external hd enclosure and attache a cd/dvd reader.

boot by the option key.

Your iMac g3 came out near the end of 9.x updates. Your mac may not be able to boot from the standard 9.2.2 disc. You might only be able to boot from the original iMac 9.x disc that shipped with your machine.

BTW: Where did you find the syntax for boot from open firmware?

Robert

Jan 30, 2011 1:14 PM in response to Donzieja

Perhaps you could boot Tiger directly off the hd.

Later Seems when you have 9 & x on the same partition, there is a switch on the disk that says what to boot. Don't know what this might be.

mac $ nvram boot-device
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:12,\\:tbxi
mac $




Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime. Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:

reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US

How to eject a cd from the internal cd drive:
eject cd

List of devices:
devalias

List of variables:
printenv

---------------------
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

---------------------
reset the PMU
http://mrjcd.com/junk/PMU.jpg
--------------------

Why set nvram variable? I've had open-firmware based Pegasos PPC and it simply had boot command, so instead of:

setenv boot-device ud:3,\:tbxi

should be enough to write:

boot ud:3,\:tbxi

I hadn't been able to fathom the syntax... until I listed a bunch of os's.
Used startup of system perferences to select disk/media then click on lock then
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
nvram boot-device


Now, we can guess meaning:
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:12,\\:tbxi
| | Partition/location
| on device
|
0 = master
1 = slave

for ata internal device


Why set nvram variable? I've had open-firmware based Pegasos PPC and it simply had boot command, so instead of:

setenv boot-device ud:3,\:tbxi

should be enough to write:

boot ud:3,\:tbxi

my setup,boot my internal harddrive Tiger partition:
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:12,\\:tbxi
my setup, boot my internal harddrive classic 9.2.2 partition
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:10,\\:tbxi

boot from Mac OS 9 cd???
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi

boot 10.2 install cd
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi

boot hardware test cd
boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@1:9,\\:tbxi

boot from external firewire hd with Tiger installed
boot-device fw/node@1d202009c115c/sbp-2@c000/@0:10,\\:tbxi

boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive Tiger DVD
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:3,\\:tbxi

boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive 9.2.2 install cd
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:9,\\:tbxi

boot from external firewire cd/dvd drive Hardware test
boot-device fw/node@50770500071002/sbp-2@4000/@0:9,\\:tbxi

network startup
boot-device enet:bootp



mac $ sudo pdisk -l
Password:

Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/rdisk0'
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 64
3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 56 @ 120
4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 176
5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 56 @ 232
6: Apple_FWDriver Macintosh 512 @ 288
7: Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh 512 @ 800
8: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 @ 1312
9: Apple_Free 262144 @ 1824 (128.0M)
10: Apple_HFS Apple_HFS_Untitled_1 2254440 @ 263968 ( 1.1G)
11: Apple_Free 262144 @ 2518408 (128.0M)
12: Apple_HFS Apple_HFS_Untitled_2 146538496 @ 2780552 ( 69.9G)
13: Apple_Free 6982440 @ 149319048 ( 3.3G)

Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=156301488 (74.5G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: 23 @ 64, type=0x1
2: 36 @ 120, type=0xffff
3: 21 @ 176, type=0x701
4: 34 @ 232, type=0xf8ff

pdisk: No valid block 1 on '/dev/rdisk2'

Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/rdisk3'
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI*Macintosh 8 @ 64
3: Apple_HFS Mac_OS_X 5531656 @ 72 ( 2.6G)
4: Apple_Free 10 @ 5531728

Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=5531738 (2.6G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
Drivers-
1: 4 @ 64, type=0x701

mac $



Robert

iMac G3 Boot problems?

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