G3 MiniTower, Won't boot from any devices.

Question

G3 MiniTower, Won't boot from any devices.

Hello, i recently got a lot of 8 PowerPC Mac. One of these is a PowerMac G3 Minitower but it refuse to boot. i successfully booted it from a System 8.5 floppy but now when i try to boot from the floppy i get a Happy Mac but the floppy is ejected 2 second after. i have almost all the Mac OS CD and i tested all of them on my others mac and they qork great. when i try a Mac OS 8.5 CD (with and without the C Key Down), the cd is ejected 2 second after the happy mac, My Mac OS 9.1 CD, OS X 10.2 CD and my Mac OS 9.2 CD won't boot at all (i get the Floppy with a Question Mark), I Have installed a Core System Software for all Macintosh on a SCSI External Hard Disk with my B&W G3 but i still get the Floppy with a Question Mark (i also pressed CMD-OPT-SHIFT-DELETE for external boot), i have installed a Core Mac OS 8.5 System for All Macintosh on a Internal Hard Disk and i installed it in the G3 but i still get the Floppy with a Question Mark. i don't know what to do. With my Mac OS 8.5 cd, i got 1 time to the Mac OS Logo but right after i got a blinking White box on the top of it.

What i can do?

Thank You
Thomas Brousseau

AMD Athlon 64 3300+, Powerbook G3 WallStreet 300Mhz, IIci,IIsi, Skware DC1,, Other OS, Performa 575, Mac IIx, Mac 128k, Pippin, Mac Plus, Mac Classic, Powermac G3,G4

Posted on May 7, 2006 2:11 PM

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Answer 1

May 7, 2006 5:28 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

Hi Thomas
Have you replaced the pram battery yet? Almost all of the computers I buy surplus have batteries in them, but have been off wall power for awhile and that completly drains the battery. Replace the battery with a new one or one you know is good, and do a pram reset. Upon start-up hold the option, command, p, and r keys until you hear 4 start up chimes. This should reset the pram where all start up information is stored. A dead battery will corrupt this info, so even if your on wall power that info is no good. Try this and post back and let us know what is going on, as someone here will be able to get you going. Bill J

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Answer 2

May 7, 2006 6:12 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

Check this site for battery part numbers and sources. Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial

Cheers, Tom

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Answer 3

May 7, 2006 11:20 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

Thomas,

Looks like you have done a thorough job of exploring boot options. Grant could probably give a more detailed sequence of boot events from developer notes. Bottom line, something is not checking out AFTER the RAM check, after SCSI conflicts, etc. Time to start the process of elimination.

Totally disassemble the MT and rebuild it from scratch. One time a IIci would not complete a boot sequence. Totally rebuilding it turned up a loose screw under the motherboard that did not affect matters until part way into the boot process. Who knows what your machine's issues might be but starting from scratch sounds like your next step.

Jim

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Answer 4

May 9, 2006 11:44 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

The PRAM holds the "last running OS kind" {MacOS, Unix, BeOS, other} and "last running version" {6.0.8, 7.6, 8.5, 9.2, 10.3} and "Boot device" parameters. A bad battery allows that information to become corrupted. The Mac will sometimes not go back to an older version.

The sound card sometimes becomes loose in its slot, because the back panel is only attached at one side.

When a valid system diskette or CD is ejected at startup, it is because the Mac rejects it. The Mac is saying, "I CAN read this disk, and I know it is not one I can boot from." This may be due to the PRAM corruption mentioned above.

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Answer 5

Jul 6, 2006 1:55 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hello All and please Excuse me for the long time without reply. i have replaced the pram battery, changed the RAM, Installed a SCSI Hard Drive, Reset the PRAM, CUDA Reset, Cleaned all part and now when i start the computer up with a system CD, He hang up at the Happy Mac Face. The Mac OS 8.5 CD is still Ejected at start-up. The only thing i didn't cleaned up is the back of the motherboard. I Don't know what to do.

What can i do now?

Thank You

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Answer 6

Jul 6, 2006 8:16 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

>"the Happy Mac Face..."

The Happy Mac SE is smiling because it found valid Boot Blocks on a drive, and will now try to boot from that drive. If the CD is no longer in the drive, it is booting from the Hard Drive you installed. Either the Hard Disk Driver or parts of the System installed on that Hard Drive are bad, or the SCSI termination is not right. You should not set the Hard drive to ID=3 (only the low two ADDR jumpers installed) as that is the address used for the "C"-key device, such as a SCSI CD Drive.

You can sometimes bypass the default drive by holding down Command Option Shift Delete at startup. But it makes more sense for debugging to just disconnect the power connector to the Hard Drive until you can boot from a CD.

If you have a good battery, and press the tiny CUDA Reset button, the parameters should be set to values that will allow it to boot from a CD. They will also be set to defaults when you hold down 4 keys: Command Option P R for 4 chimes at startup.

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Answer 7

Jul 6, 2006 8:30 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

Thomas,

Is the CD scratched in any way? I have an install disk that is lightly scratched in many places and takes three times as long to boot because of the multiple passes required to read the CD. Could the CPU be stopping when it fails to read more data?

Ji˜m

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Answer 8

mac gart

Level 1

0 points

Oct 2, 2006 8:59 AM in response to william jaderberg

How many battery is in the G3 Mini Tower?
I thought its only one of the battery which I changed already.

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Answer 9

mac gart

Level 1

0 points

Oct 2, 2006 9:14 AM in response to Thomas Brousseau

Would you please tell me how did you replaced the pram buttery?

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Answer 10

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,272 points

Oct 2, 2006 12:44 PM in response to mac gart

One battery handles it. Here are some resources for replacing Mac batteries:

General battery info:

Mac Logic Board Battery Page

G3 Logic Board diagram (helps with finding things):

Ligic Board Diagram

The battery is a 1/2 AA 3.6V lithium. Radio Shack sells them as part number 23-026, but their batteries have grown expensive, around US$14.50. Here's a place from which I've ordered batteries for US$6.88 including shipping:

Operation Headgap Systems

Click on "Batteries in the left-hand pane. The correct battery is the first one listed.

A

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Answer 11

Oct 2, 2006 8:48 PM in response to Thomas Brousseau

The battery is under the end of the sound card. Because the back panel is attached at one side only, the sound card can be pulled half way out of its connector while you are working on the battery. Be certain that the sound card is fully inserted into its slot before you close the case.

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