G4 MDD will only boot from firewire

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Hello all,
I have an ( I believe ) unusual problem.
I have 2 G4 MDD, 1 is dual 867, 2 is dual 1.42, both have same amount of ram, same video card, same dvd.
Here's the problem:
867 has my current boot drive, an 320 gig Seagate ata.
1.42 had a 120 gig Seagate ata as boot drive.
I thought since these two machines were so close in hardware, that I could simply switch the 320 from the 867 to the 1.42, and boot it up.
No go......( Apple Genius was wrong ), the 1.42 won't boot to the OSX dvd either, I get the flashing ? I can put the 320 drive in a firewire case and go change the startup drive and run the machine like that, ( I'm typing this that way now ). Is this a case of the hard drive being " tagged " to the other machine, and I'll have to repartition, reinstall to get it to work?
As I have said, the only way I can boot to the 320 as my stratup drive, is to use it through firewire. I know that both of these can see drives larger than 137 gigs, and the 1.42 is newer.......much quicker......
also, how do I find out the current installed firmware on the 1.42 ?
I doubt that this is the problem, I also have not been able to reset the PRAM as descibed, when I try the keyboard combo, it just boots up normal.
I did manage to boot to the OSX DVD ( with the 320 in firewire )and use the disk utilities, everything checks out.

Any help would be much appreciated,

Tim
 

dtravis7


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Your Mac's Specs
MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
For the Firmware revision click the Blue Apple, then About this Mac then More Info. It should be under Hardware under Boot ROM Version.

Are you using an Apple keyboard? Are you holding down Command(Apple)-Option-P-R all at the same time right after the chime sounds?

You keep them all down for 2 more chimes. That might fix it. If not let us know.
 
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No go on the chimes with an Apple keyboard. When I use the option key, I get I box asking for a password ? My user password doesn't work.
I have boot rom 4.6, is this the latest available? Apple site only has 4.28 listed that I can find for G4.
 

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