Boot from CD Blue and White G3

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Hi I have an old Blue and White G3 and I tried to install DebianPPC. Using the entire disk, and I stalled at 39% so I reboot (I know..) to start the install process over again. However nothing shows when I restart, holding down the C key does not bring me to a boot from cd menu. I hear the mac sound when I power on but other then that nothing shows on the monitor (it tells me there is no signal).

Any ideas?
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Were you able to Verify or Repair the Disk, and format?
 
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If I remember correctly those old B&W's would only run Yellowdog linux. Never heard of anything else running on them reliably.
At least that's all I could find to run on mine.
 
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Hello, try booting with the Option (Alt) key held down - that should get you to a screen showing all bootable media.

Cheers :)

Hugh
 
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Thanks for the advice but it still won't boot. I was wondering if maybe approaching it under the idea that it is a completely new and blank hard drive. Still looking things up, much appreciated :).

I found this list of old start up commands but none of them seem to help: http://www.poynton.com/notes/mac/Mac_startup_keys_obsolete.html

So basically I started to rewrite over the entire drive, I think it may of messed up the start up commands. I also do not know where the disc is that came with my computer.
 
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Booting with C held down should boot it from cd. Have you tried it with another keyboard?
It's possible the motherboard is bad, or at least the videoboard if it's showing 'No Signal'.
 
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It doesn't. It did the first time before I started to write over the entire drive. I think that there are boot up things in a partition that is hidden that does all those boot things. I don't know what to do without it. I can't get it to start with any key combination I have tried.

Everything works, because everything was fine until I stopped an install to restart the install at 39% rewriting over the entire drive with Debian PPC.
 
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Glad it worked out for you - your persistence has paid off :)

Cheers :)

Hugh
 
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if you are talking the old clamshell and yes surprisingly people are still using them strangely enough then yes a pram reset is needed.

just for trivia on this is you have a macintosh lombard edition and it won't boot you have to unplug the internal clock battery from the board and startup the machine without it installed once go into shutdown and then reconnect it and your machine will function fine
 
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This is what we're talking about...

bnw.jpg
 

dtravis7


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I was coming to tell you to do the PRAM reset but see you figured it out! Yes the older G3's an even some of the very early G4's got that way and a PRAM reset would make them come alive. Also some will not light the screen if the PRAM battery is shot.
 
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And my post was for johnodd4. You know exactly what you have AuroraDizon.
 

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