05-18-2012, 12:41 PM

Hello,

I’m new to old Mac hardware.

I am in need of some advice or direction on a project I'm working on. I have been given a 2 Beige Power Macintosh G3 which only 1 needs to be working. We currently have OSX machines and Class 9 machines but need a machine to run OS8 as well. The machines do not have their original keyboards, mice, HDDs, and has a label from sonnettech.com on it.

At first they wouldn’t power on but I got one up and running by unplugging the ZIP, floppy, CD-ROM and removing all the PCI cards. Once up I tried to install the OS9 grey disc from a 10.2 package but failed with some extension error. Found out that the drive I put in has to be partitioned with less than 8GB which I did by using OSX 10.2 Disk Utility and formatted with OSX Extended. For some reason tried to install 10.2 to see if it would actually work which failed when it starts to load a Video extension because the screen goes black and never returns. I do have an all white Mac OS 8 disc which I’m trying to boot from but doesn’t seem to kick off nor does this burnt disc labeled 8.6 bootable. I also have a burnt disc labeled 8.5 install + 8.6 upgrade on it which also doesn’t kick off. I also get No HFS bootable partition over and over which I’m guessing is cause there is no OS?

Another issue is that since there aren’t any ADB peripherals I cannot seem to navigate or start from cd command. The only time I got USB peripherals to work was with 10.2.

Do I need a floppy to format the drive or boot with cause most of what I’m using is CD-ROM? I’m at a loss here nor does some of the original install manuals seem to help.

BTW can I install 8.0 on a G4 eMac?

Thanks

Project Pictures

05-18-2012, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by pinocchio

BTW can I install 8.0 on a G4 eMac?

No. Earliest OS you can go is OS 9.

- Nick

05-18-2012, 03:25 PM

Go to the site lowendmac and search for a machine that will run OS8, they should be fairly cheap

iMac G3/333

An old model iMac may be what you need, and MacOS 8.6 was the most stable release of that version of the Mac OS

05-18-2012, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by louishen

Go to the site lowendmac and search for a machine that will run OS8, they should be fairly cheap

iMac G3/333

An old model iMac may be what you need, and MacOS 8.6 was the most stable release of that version of the Mac OS

That might work, we have a couple of those in our warehouse.

05-20-2012, 03:50 PM

Your going to need the correct keyboards for the Beige G3's. You can run up to 9.2. I would stay away from 10 ...just bogs it down, plus theres firmware issues. The full install disc are white with an orange 9 on them. Os 8 disc are white with Mac OS 8 in black and the 8 is red. Theres also a lime green one that says Power Macintosh G3 ssw 8.6.

05-20-2012, 04:42 PM

And I just got rid of my old keyboards a few months ago. Darn!

05-23-2012, 04:47 PM

Thanks everyone,

Got it working.

Ended up getthing the second G3 up and running which booted with a 8.6 bootable disc. Found a 4pin ADB mouse that I was able to navigate with and also found a USB support file from Apple which enabled a USB keyboard. CD-ROM, Floppy, and ZIP drives all work too.

I was about to scrap the Beige G3s and use the mentioned iMac but that posed an issue of slaving old HDD they were kept over the years but then again I might have been able to slave them via USB once I got all the software installed.

Pictures of completed G3

05-23-2012, 05:58 PM

Nice work. Love the photos and seeing old Mac's being reborn and used. Recyling at its best

05-24-2012, 03:22 PM

Thanks