Blank screen after startup

PowerMac G4, 1.8Ghz processor, 1.5GB RAM, 60 GB Internal hard drive, 500 GB external hard drive.

I hope someone can help me...here's the story:

I recently upgraded to Leopard, but before doing so, I cloned the internal hard drive to a partion on the external (giving me a bootable backup, which tested and booted OK.)

Due to an Airport problem with Leopard, I need to run Tiger from the backup...but for some reason, it no longer works! It goes through the startup routine, but when finished, all I get is a blank background...no menus, no disks, no windows...nothing!

I have run Disk Utility from Tiger Install disk, repair and permissions both show OK, I have booted from and used DiskWarrior...showed OK. I have reset PRAM, started up with safe boot...nothing helps. I also started up with Applejack, and it seemed to be OK too.

I don't know what else to do...any ideas?

Jim

Welcome to Mac-Forums, jimtastor.

A few questions...

Which app did you use to clone your hard drive?

When you say you cannot boot from the external, I assume you hold down the Option key during startup?

Is that partition viewable in the System Preferences' Startup Disk?

What type of external hard drive do you use? I know that a PowerPC-based Macintosh cannot boot from a USB drive (only FireWire drives), but an Intel-based Mac can, that's why I'm asking.

Can you boot from your Tiger install disk?

For now, these are the only ideas that come to me.

MacHeadCase said:

Welcome to Mac-Forums, jimtastor.

A few questions...

Which app did you use to clone your hard drive?

When you say you cannot boot from the external, I assume you hold down the Option key during startup?

Is that partition viewable in the System Preferences' Startup Disk?

What type of external hard drive do you use? I know that a PowerPC-based Macintosh cannot boot from a USB drive (only FireWire drives), but an Intel-based Mac can, that's why I'm asking.

Can you boot from your Tiger install disk?

For now, these are the only ideas that come to me.

Click to expand...

MacHeadCase,
I cloned using Carbon Copy Cloner.

Yes, used option key...external appears, Also selectable in Startup Disk in Preferences.

External is a LaCie FireWire Drive.

Yes, can boot from Tiger install disk

Ok if your external is selectable in the Startup Disk, try selecting it to make it the boot drive and then restart.

See if it will let you boot from the eternal hard drive now.

And if you can see the external hard drive holding down the Option key, that would be the way to choose the Tiger external on startup. Holding down the Option key makes the system see all bootable and valid volumes. Navigate with the arrow keys to the external hard drive and you should be ok now.