Trouble installing any operating system..

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I bought an iMac G3 today. All I know it has 384MB of RAM, its bondi blue, tray load. Had a bad HD, flashing questionmark... Replaced it with another HD.

All the installers see the HD, and will "Initialize" it. Then install just fine, then won't boot up into the OS after restart.

I tried OS 9.1 first, it came up, installed fine, rebooted and got a flashing question mark.

Then tried OS 8.5 (original software install), and it did the same, only couldn't install internet features either.

Now I wiped the HD and im using the original 8.5 software restore disk. Seems to be working, just got to install firmware updates.

What would cause none of the systems to boot?
 

dtravis7


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How large is the new HDD? There is a 8GB or around limit for the Boot Partition on the Tray Load iMacs.

After I see your answer I will show you what to do.


Edit:

Mac OS X

If you have a hard drive over 8 GB in size, you must partition it, and the partition containing OS X must be completely within the first 8 GB of space or you will not be able to run OS X. (If you are creating the partition within OS X, it must be 7.45 GB or smaller as reported by Disk Utility, because sometimes a GB is billion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes.)

http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/imac-d.shtml
 
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iBeldar
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The new HD is 20GB. I would like to have flash player so I guess I need to install OSX unless OS 9.1 supports flash. Do I need to install any firmware updates first?

After using system restore, it still wont boot.

I took the HD, made a 7.99 GB partition, and then a 10.71 GB partition for OSX Jaguar. Its installing, but it will take about 2 and a half hours.
 

dtravis7


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The new HD is 20GB. I would like to have flash player so I guess I need to install OSX unless OS 9.1 supports flash. Do I need to install any firmware updates first?

After using system restore, it still wont boot.

I told you at the end of my other post what needs to be done. 2 Partitions. Old Tray Loading iMacs are all that way.

9.1 is basically worthless and no good browsers at all. Make the 1st partition 7.45 GB then another with the rest of the space. Only way it will ever boot from OSX. Unless you can install and boot up OS 9 you really can't tell what the Firmware revision is nor the CPU speed so we can see just what model it is. Tray Loaders though need a 8GB (7.45 GB) First boot partition.

Do you have a bootable OS 9.1 CD? If so, boot from it and look on there for System Info. See if you can find the Firmware revision.

If after you make the 7.45 GB partition and install OSX, it still will not boot, something else is wrong, but that should fix it.

If not let us know.

Edit: I just booted my iMac Tray Load with my 9.2 Install CD. Could not find System Profiler.
 

dtravis7


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Any luck so far?
 
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So far, everything installs, but doesn't boot. Would it be a problem with the HD?

Right now im trying OS 9.1 again.
 

dtravis7


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So far, everything installs, but doesn't boot. Would it be a problem with the HD?

Right now im trying OS 9.1 again.

Did you make the 7.45 GB boot partition on the 20GB drive? It could be Firmware also causing the OSX non boot issues but you need a working OS 9 or later to upgrade it! Check that URL, I think they said 8.6 will work to upgrade Firmware in case that is the issue.
 
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Nothing works. Everything installs just fine, nothing actually boots. I hold down the option key on startup, the boot option won't come up either. I may have put it in a firmware trap, but I think this computer has had OSX on it before. She gave me OSX 10.1 and 10.2 disks. I sent an email asking if she has had OSX on it and if the old HD crashed after installing OSX.

I was surprised that after I took it apart, there was a 40GB 7200RPM HD in it. She must've upgraded to OSX at some point.

I noticed that with every OS I installed, it flashed the question mark/mac logo, but then it goes to a mac logo and hangs forever. Then goes back to a flashing ?.

Yesterday the HD in the iMac was in my PC, it had sabayon linux installed on it and it worked fine. I don't think having Linux on the HD previously would cause any problems, it never has caused a problem before.
 

dtravis7


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Nothing works. Everything installs just fine, nothing actually boots. I hold down the option key on startup, the boot option won't come up either.

I noticed that with every OS I installed, it flashed the question mark/mac logo, but then it goes to a mac logo and hangs forever. Then goes back to a flashing ?.

Yesterday the HD in the iMac was in my PC, it had sabayon linux installed on it and it worked fine.

You have that under 8GB partition correct?

Power up the iMac and hold COMMAND-OPTION-P-R and keep those 4 keys down till you hear 2 startup chimes then let go. See if it boots then.
 
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Firmwear...Firmwear..If your not useing the orange Imac install dics theres no firmwear and your lucky the video still comes up. On an other Mac download the firmwear for your Imac and burn it to a dics and load it in the Imac its self
extracting and read the instuctions to push the programers button.
If you install 10 with out the right firmwear update you can kill the Imac,Its called death by 10,and the unix code burns up the video chip.
 
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Firmwear...Firmwear..If your not useing the orange Imac install dics theres no firmwear and your lucky the video still comes up. On an other Mac download the firmwear for your Imac and burn it to a dics and load it in the Imac its self
extracting and read the instuctions to push the programers button.
If you install 10 with out the right firmwear update you can kill the Imac,Its called death by 10,and the unix code burns up the video chip.

If thats the case, then it must have the right firmware. It installed just fine, video comes up just fine, everything works just fine. It just won't boot....


CMD-OPT-P-R didn't do anything for it.

EDIT!: Firmware is up to date. The installer for the iMac Firmware 1.2 was on the OS 9.1 disk. I tried to update it and it said the firmware was already up to date.

OSX 10.1 won't boot either... It hangs at the folder/mac icon.
 

dtravis7


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How is the hard drive set jumpered? Master? Slave? Cable Select?
 
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iBeldar
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Wow... I dunno. It is probably slave. When it was in my PC I couldn't get the linux boot loader to come up because it was on the linux HD. It would just boot to XP.

Even if I open Startup Disk Utilities and select the HD, it still won't boot if its set to slave?

I'll have to take it apart again to set it...
 

dtravis7


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What brand and model is that 20GB? I just found an article that says it should be set at Single Master. Some WD drives have that setting by taking off all jumpers. I took my 333Mhz iMac Tray Load apart, WD drive and it's set to Single. They said it would not boot unless it was set that way. The old iMacs are very picky.
 
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That was it. It was set to something else, so I set it to master, and it started right up.
 

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Yea Im about to install OSX 10.1. Not an extremely fast computer, so i'll leave 10.2 alone..
 

dtravis7


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Yea Im about to install OSX 10.1. Not an extremely fast computer, so i'll leave 10.2 alone..

Now that it boots, what CPU is in it? G3 what MHZ. 10.2.8 works great on my 233Mhz iMac with 256Megs RAM and 10.3 is fine on my 333Mhz iMac.
 
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Its a 233MHZ Rev B. I forgot how I determined it was a Rev B.

It has 10.1 on it now, the lady I got it from forgot to give me disk 2 for Jaguar. She lives close to my work so she said she would drop it off. I didn't even notice the CD i had said "Disk 1" on it. :p


Good thing, I can't find any good browsers for 10.1. IE is really slow...
I can't even get OS 9 to connect to the internet.
 
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She dropped off a bunch of stuff. The 2nd OSX 10.2 disk, iLife 2005, World Book Mac OSX Edition. She gave me OSX Manuals, a get started disk, a bunch of print outs on how to take it apart and everything. Good deal of stuff. All this software/OS is worth more than the computer.
 

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