[X4U] G3 in endless loop of inaction

[Jonnythan]

Hi Ronald,

Thanks for your reply. But unfortunately it doesn't help.

The cds I was trying to restart from were TechToolPro and DiskWarrior (both
cds, not dvds). 

There was definitely a Classic OS 9 folder on the G3 because my friend used
Classic quite a lot, but I'm not sure if this can be used as a start-up OS 9
system - I assumed this was the source of the problem.

The way I'd tried to use it as a firewire target drive was the correct way,
which you describe.

I'd also already tried zapping the pram.

It's as if the keyboard is not responding when you press either c, t, or alt
on start-up, although it does perform as expected with the zap-pram keys
depressed.

It's a mystery.


Best,

Jonnythan.


*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*



> On 28 Jun, 2007, at 2:16 PM, Jonnythan wrote:
> 
>> My friend has a really old blue G3 running OS X (don't know what
>> flavour)
>> and Classic. She decided to restart in OS9, and chose the Classic
>> folder to
>> start up from with the StartUp Disk preference pane.
>> 
>> The result was the flashing question mark on startup.
>> 
>> When holding the the alt-key on startup you don't get the option to
>> choose a
>> startup folder.
>> 
>> The G3 refuses to start from a CD when holding down the c-key on
>> startup,
>> and won't mount as an external firewire disk when firewire-
>> connected to an
>> iMac and started up with the t-key held down.
>> 
>> So the question is can anyone think of a way out of this scenario
>> to get the
>> G3 to start up in OS X again?
> 
> The flashing question mark indicates that no system folder for OS-9
> was found on the drive. Is your friend positive that there was indeed
> a valid OS-9 system installed in the first place?
> 
> If holding the Option button down during startup doesn't give any
> choice of active system folders, your friend may have corrupted the
> OS-X system so that it is not available to start from any more. Not
> showing an active system folder for OS-9 indicates to me that there
> is no valid OS-9 on the drive.
> 
> What CD is being used as the startup CD? If it does not have a valid
> OS on it, the machine won't use it to boot from. Another reason for
> not starting from a CD could be that the CD is not an original
> installation CD and is not being recognized by the CD player. Some CD
> readers will not allow a copied installation CD to mount for startup.
> This is especially noticeable with older G3 machines in my
> experience. The last reason for not starting from a CD is that the CD
> reader is not a Mac bootable model, meaning that the Mac will let it
> read CDs, but not let it start up from a CD. This can occur when a
> replacement CD reader is installed.
> 
> The Firewire issue is something else. As far as I know, the machine
> being started in Target mode has to have the cable connected to both
> machines before starting it up and the viewing machine has to be
> running at the time that the Target machine is turned on. Then, you
> have to wait for a few seconds to a minute before the Target machine
> drive will show up on the viewing machine's monitor. Does the monitor
> not show the Firewire symbol when the machine is booted, or just not
> boot at all?
> 
> In all cases, my first inclination would be to try booting to an
> original installation CD for OS-X (whatever version you have
> available as long as it is not a copied CD) and use Disk FirstAid to
> examine and maybe repair the disk.
> 
> A thought just jumped in, what version of OS are you trying to boot
> to? If your OS disk is a DVD (OS-10.4?) and you have a CD reader in
> the machine, it isn't going to show up to boot from! The machine just
> can't do it that way.
> 
> 
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