Beige G3 lost connection to OSX drive

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Beige G3 lost connection to OSX drive

Hello, i have had a whole legion of problems with my dad's old g3 for a while, many of which had to do with different cards not staying plugged in, and recently, while trying to find out why the computer wasn't displaying on the monitor (video card was unplugged), i took out and put back in a few things i don't think i should have, such as the two rams, and a card that i didn't recognize next to the ram that looked similar to the ram with a sticker that says 8x64 sync (didn't know if that was important). Now comes the part that depresses me. I reboot the computer after getting the video card back in, and it automatically boots into OS9, which it has always had problems doing, so I was kind of worried, and sure enough once the desktop comes up a window pops up that says the OSX drive couldn't be recognized and i would have to reformat it to get it connected. I guess the hd is "partitioned", i'm not sure if that is the correct phrase or not, but one part of it is the OS9 part, and the other the OSX part. I am assuming that I did this by taking out the ram or something, but now I can't fix it because if i try to boot using the panther system disks (which are the correct ones), or try installing the OS, on boot up the screen just goes gray and nothing happens. Is there a way for me to fix this without erasing the data on the OSX part of the drive, or have I completely screwed myself?

Thanks, Ryan Pena

eMac G4 1.25 ghz, 40 gb hd, Mac OS X (10.4.6), 768 MB RAM, mighty mouse, video ipod

Posted on Jul 1, 2006 7:38 PM

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Answer 1

Niel

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Jul 1, 2006 10:53 PM in response to Ryan Pena

Open the Disk First Aid application in your Applications (Mac OS 9):Utilities folder and run it on the Mac OS X partition until it reports no problems; issues not found on the first check may be revealed in a subsequent run. If the Disk First Aid application cannot fix the drive, a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior may be required to fix it.

(13769)

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Answer 2

Jul 2, 2006 11:54 AM in response to Ryan Pena

Niel's advice above is very good.

If you pulled the plug to reseat these items, you should be suspicious that your PRAM backup battery is too weak to maintain the parameters across a power outage. You can reset the the parameters to their factory defaults by holding down 4 keys
Command Option P R
and keep holding them until you have heard 4 chimes.

If your battery is indeed too weak, the next power fluctuation or unplugging for any reason will allow corruption into the System Parameters.

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Answer 3

Jul 3, 2006 8:37 AM in response to Ryan Pena

To boot 10.3 Panther, you need to run XPostFacto
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/
10.2 Jaguar was the last Apple-supported OS X version on the G3. Which version did you have running on your existing OS X partition?

Removing and reinstalling the RAM and VRAM shouldn't cause any problems. If you are changing hardware or adding new components, you may need to reset the CUDA switch, near the back left beside the PCI slots just to get it to startup. If you are just having boot problems, think about getting a new PRAM battery.

With boot problems like this, the data on your disc is probably still fine, if anything it may just need some minor repairs with Disc Utility, but a total reformat probably is not necessary. It's good that you can boot into another partition into OS 9. You should be able to boot from the Panther install discs, it may take a very long time to load everything from the OS X CD, much longer than from an OS 9 disc.

I think you could run Disc Utility from either the OS 9 partition or the OS X install disc. Maybe an expert could give a recommendation if either one is better.

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Answer 4

Ryan Pena Author

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26 points

Jul 3, 2006 8:59 PM in response to Ryan Pena

Ok, the cmnd-opt-p-r didn't help, and when I verify the osx part of the hd, it says that it can't repair the problem, which is that "keys are out of order 4, 124". I have no idea what this means, is this something i can fix easily?

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Answer 5

Niel

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Jul 3, 2006 11:26 PM in response to Ryan Pena

That message indicates that there is damage to tbe B-tree; see this article for general information, and here for details on the subject.

You should not back up a whole Mac OS X system from within Mac OS 9 due to special information required for Mac OS X to function correctly; dragging your home folder to another disk from Mac OS 9 is safe.

(13849)

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Answer 6

Jul 6, 2006 1:14 AM in response to Niel

Thankfully, where we could safely drag n drop the contents of an OS9 mac to another and get a twin,
for OSX, Mike Bombich has given us this little gem: CarbonCopyCloner.

HTH

j.

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