Gray apple screen and no progress wheel

Devin,

May I first recommend that you remove all traces of Norton Utilities. Symantec no longer supports OSX with a disk utility and their utility has caused many problems in OSX.

Download the Symantec Uninstaller here:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/files/num/numac_8files.html

I have seen reports where the Wallstreet appears to start to boot into 9.x, then switches over to booting into OSX. A few suggestions...

- Once up and running, be sure to select your 10.2.8 volume in the Startup Disk panel in System Preferences.

- See if it will Safe Boot (Safe Mode). Press/hold the shift key and release when you see Safe Boot. If no success, try the suggestions in this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464

- If you end up having to reinstall the OS and you are using a Jaguar/10.2 CD, update to 10.2.8 using the MacOS X Combo Update 10.2.8. This often works better than the incremental/delta updates. In fact, one troubleshooting technique is to run the Combo Update on top of your installed 10.2.8 to try and correct the problem.

Devin,

Even though Panther/10.3 has a USB requirement, it is not necessary. With the release of Panther, Apple dropped support for the Wallstreet. However, you can run Panther and even Tiger on the Wallstreet (I have run both on my Wallstreet) with the use of XPostFacto.
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

I understand the problem of installing software if you do not have a DVD drive. To install Tiger, I removed my HD and placed it in a FireWire HD enclosure and connected it to my iBook G3 800Mhz. I cannot imagine disassembling the TiBook to swap drives...much too much work.

In order to use XPostFacto, you need a working OS9.x or 10.x on the HD. Once you install a non-supported OS on the Wallstreet, you must use XPostFacto to select your startup volume (9.x or 10.x); the 9.x and 10.x Startup Disk control panels will just freeze the powerbook.

There is also an adapter that connects a bare 2.5" HD to a FireWire port but I have been unable to find it so far.

Devin,

Try starting in Single-User Mode and running fsck:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Be sure to press/hold the keys until the text-based screen appears; this may take 20-40 seconds from a cold start depending on how much RAM you have.

Devin,

OSX really does not need an optimizer...it does not fragment files like 9.x did. OSX also automatically defragments files 20MB and smaller.

However, if you want a 10.x compatible utility that can optimize, check hardware and software, repair directories, etc, Micromat's TechTool Pro is highly regarded. Click on 'TechTool Pro 4.1.2 Released' for info. It does look like it requires a Mac that can boot 10.4 and your Wallstreet can only boot up to 10.2.8. The eDrive, part of TechTool Pro, is not a good solution for the Wallstreet; you really need a bootable CD with TTPro 4.1.2 on it. I would inquire at Micromat regarding this.

http://www.micromat.com/

Devin,

Take a look at this article...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25249

I believe Wallstreet is "PowerBook G3 Series," is it not? I don't have one of those, but I have a tray-loading iMac with the same 8GB boot partition limit. Basically, all OS components must be installed in the first 8GB (or so) of the hard drive due to a limitation in the IDE controller used in these Macs (the ones listed in the article). Normally, the Mac OS X Installer will prevent installation (on the affected Macs) if the target volume is over the 8GB limit. However, since you "bypassed" running the installer on the Wallstreet by using a Mac that supported Panther, it installed fine. In fact, initially everything worked OK because all OS components were still within the first 8GB of disk space. However, when installing QuickTime and iTunes, some OS components must have been placed beyond the 8GB limit. Therefore, you got the gray screen. I am guessing this is your problem.

The solution is to do what the linked article suggests. Partition your hard drive. Instead of setting the first partition at 8GB, it is safer to go a little lower - about 7.5GB. On my iMac the first partition is 7.77GB, and that works. The second partition can be the rest of the available disk space. The second partition is fully accessible and you can runs apps from it (although some app installers complain if you do not select the boot volume). You can also put all your data files (such as your iTunes Library) on the second partition. If you use Classic under Mac OS X, the designated Classic System Folder can be on the second partition. [Note: Booting directly into Mac OS 9 has the same 8GB limit. The System Folder must be in the first 8GB of disk space in order to directly start from it, or you will get the same gray screen.]

Kenichi,

[Note: Booting directly into Mac OS 9 has the same 8GB limit. The System Folder must be in the first 8GB of disk space in order to directly start from it, or you will get the same gray screen.] <<</div>

That has not been my experience. I have a Wallstreet with three partitions and I have had no trouble booting any partition with 8.x or 9.x. The third partition is in the last 6GB of a 20GB HD.

Not having a Wallstreet, I can only go by what the tech note says. It's definitely an issue with my tray-loader iMac, under Mac OS X or Mac OS 9. The Wallstreets were released in two "runs." The first had the varying screen sizes across models. The second had the consistent screen size at 14-inch, and I think Apple also changed the manufacturer. Perhaps when it was re-designed for a later revision, the IDE controller was updated to a newer type.

However, the problem seen in the original post is a classic case of the 8GB limit. User installs a new hard drive. It works fine initially. Later, after the drive is more full (or more fragmented), user installs something that puts an OS component above the 8GB limit and gets the gray screen upon restart.

The 8GB limit only applies to OSX. OS9 and older load a driver from the disk immediately before going to the System Folder. OSX used the rom driver while setting up the OS and the rom driver can only address 8GB.

Kenichi,

Unfortunately we do not have enough information from Devin to know if he partitioned the 80GB HD. He did say...

"I have a G3 wallstreet that was running on 10.2.9 and running stable. I upgraded the hard drive to a WD Scorpio 80 GB. everything was going great I got my new battery, booted up and ran a software update."

"I had used the combo update no probs. then when I updated iTunes and Quick Time the necessary restart caused the issue."

It is possible he installed 10.2.x without the 8GB partition on the TiBook. What I do not know for a fact is if the Wallstreet will even boot to OSX without the 8GB partition. He had run the combo update which requires a restart...is this possible without the partition? Since the 10.x installer will refuse to install OSX on the Wallstreet without the 8GB partition, I doubt this is possible.

Since the 10.x installer will refuse to install OSX on the Wallstreet without the 8GB partition, I doubt this is possible.

Devin said he bypassed running the Mac OS X installer on the Wallstreet due to the DVD issue, and used a TiBook for installing it on the hard drive. Therefore, he never ran into the restriction imposed by the Mac OS X installer. Also, Mac OS X will start up fine as long as all of the OS components used at start up are within the first 8GB of disk space. If was probably still OK after installing the combo update. After installing the QuickTime and ITunes files, perhaps not, which is why it went gray screen.

Again, some Wallstreets may have different IDE controllers, depending on revision. Here's a Wallstreet user who apparently has the 8GB limit. From a recent posting...

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3066431