resurrecting a murdered G3

T

tincanebits

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:bandage:
I’m trying to resurrect a murdered G3 Minitower model m4405. It has the DVDROM & ZIP100 drives plus all the myriad multimedia connectors (which is part of what makes me think this is a worthwhile project). It was being discarded as unfixable by some tech support people who probably know more about (yeah, I know it isn’t really all that)current Macs than me. The story is that it was killed by a Mac knowledgeable employee who had just been fired and apparently was anxious that no one would ever be able to see or use his files. The physical hardware seems intact (no obvious damage to motherboard, drives, cables and connectors, RAM DIMMs (2x128), etc.). I have no way of knowing what system version(s) he was running.

Nothing I’ve tried so far has resulted in even a partial boot.

I do get a grey screen and a mouse pointer icon in the top left corner of the monitor and the only time it isn’t there is when it blacks out during a resetting of the P-RAM. Otherwise it never moves or changes. The mouse has no effect on it whatever. Other than the key sequence that resets P-RAM, no other key commands seem to have any effect.

At power up the DVDROM drive spins (light flashes) and it feels like the HD is spinning

The monitor and adb keyboard/mouse I’m using are from an older Mac and are known good.

Nothing is connected to any of the other ports. I have reseated all the easily reached connectors & the RAM DIMMs.

I’ve purchased a brand new copy of OS X Panther ..3.5 on CDs, presuming that the DVDROM drive is capable of reading these without problem or unusual driver support.

I’ve tried all the command sequences I know to boot from the CD to no avail. I would think that I should at least get something from the boot ROM since power on results in the familiar chime which repeats every little while if I continue to reset P-RAM by continuing to hold down the key sequence. Other than that & the drive motors (& head resets) there are no other sounds (like those bells that would indicate bad RAM) I did let it sit there not doing anything for the better part of an hour last night.

I have yet to remove & or replace the battery, and can’t think of any useful thing that can be done with the floppy or Zip drives. I am also at a loss regarding evaluating whether Firmware upgrades are needed or already in place. Obviously, I don’t mind starting over from scratch with this Mac.

Perhaps most important; does anyone out there know if there is a command sequence that would render a Mac of this type into a (hopefully-semi) permanent doorstop, & how it can be reversed?

Thanks!
 

rman


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First i don't think you can install OS X 10.3.x with out using XPostFacto. Now there is what I see. The first curious note, is that you don't get a sad mac icon on your screen.

I'm assuming that when you installed the cd into the cdrom drive and restarted the system you held down (pressed) c key the hold time the system was booting.

If you can boot from the cd you can verify the hard drive if it is any good.

My guess would be you have a corrupted system file. Do you have a copy of OS 9?
 
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T

tincanebits

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rman said:
First i don't think you can install OS X 10.3.x with out using XPostFacto. Now there is what I see. The first curious note, is that you don't get a sad mac icon on your screen.

I'm assuming that when you installed the cd into the cdrom drive and restarted the system you held down (pressed) c key the hold time the system was booting.

Yes, & I tried several times

If you can boot from the cd you can verify the hard drive if it is any good.

My guess would be you have a corrupted system file. Do you have a copy of OS 9?

Not yet

I don't know about XPostFacto. I'll go take a look

thanks for your help.
 
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To me, it sounds like problems that use to occur with scsi id conflicts. Since you don't have a scsi drive…not the problem.

Since the irate employee was on a mission, it could be any number of things.

A few ideas…
check pins on hd and dvdrom (might have some bent and touching or broken)
check master/slave pins
check all cables
try replacing cables
check battery
check inside of dvd drive for foreign object
try unplugging inside cables and then see if dvd drive is recognized
 

rman


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I would follow what immdb suggested. It may be that your tech support people did not want to deal with it.
 
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tincanebits

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rman said:
I would follow what immdb suggested. It may be that your tech support people did not want to deal with it.


Thank you all for you kind suggestions and insights. I'll be trying them out over the weekend and will let you know.
 

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