Q: iMac G3 new hard drive

You don't need to use SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to duplicate a pre-OS X installation.  You can drag-copy the contents of the original 4 GB drive to the new hard drive.  Start with the System Folder, then the Applications Folder, Utilities Folder, Apple Extras and CD Extras Folders, and then the Documents Folder.  Temporarily connect the new hard drive to the host computer using a USB-to-IDE adapter or external enclosure.  The original iMac with USB 1.0/1.1 will take a long time to do this, given the amount of data to be copied, but it should work.  I've never had a problem copying the pre-OS X software from the existing hard drive to a replacement drive in older Macs, although - obviously - a fresh install eliminates the possibility of copying corrupted data.

but the correctly formatted, partitioned, jumpered, OS9-driver equipped 40GB drive still doesn't boot the machine.

Best to state what you did.  My cyrstal ball is a little fuzzy today.

Did the hd boot up in the eMac?

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you may 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

Did you remember to make the first partition to 7.9gig.?

You need do the open firmware thing. Could be some parameter may need to be reset.

It's a command line interface.

do the  finger thing. There are two of them.  Do both. May need separate boots.

Type in the command & press return.

Also, does it matter that the PRAM battery is dead? I know certain Macs had issues with booting with a dead battery, but is the Bondi one of them?

I do not think so, but some people do.

From what I read, your procedure should have worked.

The hd boots two other PPCs.  They were both g4's.  You machine is a g3.  I do not think this makes a difference.

Continue your search for a Mac OS 9 cd. This is all I can offer.

It's a classic machine.  Hope you can keep it operational.

Mac OS 9

iCab - The Taxi for the Internet

http://www.icab.de/

http://www.icab.de/download.php?os=UB4&lang=en

Classilla is a free, open source browser for Mac OS 9

classilla.org

Robert

I thought of some more things to try overnight.

The is a reset button amoung all the ports to the right on the iMac g3 233.

Here is how to reset the logic board.  Scroll down for the imac g3

http://www.macusersguide.com/2009/05/resetting-pram-nvram-pmu/

Here is the mac alternative to bios.

Magical Macintosh Key Sequences

http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.html

http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.pdf

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343

Startup keys

http://macs.about.com/od/macoperatingsystems/qt/osxstartupkeys.htm

I have a list of magical boot key sequences:

    Key Combinations-- Effect

    * mouse down -- Eject removable media ( I think Boot ROMs prior to 2.4f1 excluded the CD drive )

    * opt -- Bring up OF system picker on New World machines. 

             iMac g3 400 or newer machine

    * cmd-opt -- Hold down until 2nd chime, will boot into Mac OS 9 ?

    * cmd-x (or just x?) -- Will boot into Mac OS X if 9 and X are on the same partition and that's the partition you're booting from.

    * cmd-opt-shift-delete -- Bypass startup drive and boot from external (or CD). This actually forces the system to NOT load the driver for the default volume, which has the side effect mentioned above. For SCSI devices it searches from highest ID to lowest for a partition with a bootable system. Not sure about IDE drives.

    * cmd-opt-shift-delete-# -- Boot from a specific SCSI ID # (# = SCSI ID number)

    * cmd-opt-p-r -- Zap PRAM. Hold down until second chime.

    * cmd-opt-n-v -- Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in Open Firmware.

    * cmd-opt-o-f -- Boot into open firmware

    * cmd-opt-t-v -- Force Quadra AV machines to use TV as a monitor

    * cmd-opt-x-o -- Boot from ROM (Mac Classic only)

    * cmd-opt-a-v -- Force an AV monitor to be recognized as one

    * c -- Boot from CD. If set to boot to X and no CD is present, may boot to 9.

    * d -- Force the internal hard disk to be the startup device

    * n -- Hold down until Mac logo, will attempt to boot from network server (using BOOTP or TFTP)

    * r -- Force PowerBooks to reset the screen

    * t -- Put FireWire machine into FireWire Target Disk mode

    * z -- Attempt to boot using the devalias zip from first bootable partition found

    * shift -- (Classic only) Disable Extensions

    * shift -- (OS X, 10.1.3 and later) Disables login items. Also disables non-essential kernel extensions (safe boot mode)

    * cmd -- (Classic only) Boot with Virtual Memory off

    * space -- (Classic only) Trigger extension manager at boot-up

    * cmd-v -- (OS X only) show console messages during boot

    * cmd-s -- (OS X only) boot into single user mode

Did not work simply 'z'?

imac.pdf is the name of the service & repair manual for your machine.

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Perhaps somehow your machine is booting the wrong partition.

I do not know your your machine will be partitioned.  Mines is triple bootable. The first visible partition is x 9.2.2.  Was setup with Mac OS 10.4.11.

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
                                   

open-firmware based Pegasos PPC and it simply had boot command, so instead of:

OpenFirmware command for setting a variable:

setenv boot-device ud:3,\:tbxi

should be enough to write:

OpenFirmware command boot for booting immediately:

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

unix command stuff...

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 $

More than you ever wanted to know about open firmware

http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html

I do not know why your machine isn't booting from the 40gig drive.

I though perhaps somehow it was trying to boot from the wrong partition.  I you do not see the frawning face, i'd guess it started booting from some partition.

I showed the unix command for listing out the partitions on my hd.  You will not be able to do this. You would have to guess the partitions. 

The boot command is

boot

Here is the format of the boot string.

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

  You would do

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

do not know would this stuff means.  anyway 12 is the partition to boot. ata-4 is the type of ata i'd guess. \\:tbxi is the file to boot I get the impression. don't know why the number is so high.