T
tincanebits
Guest
: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!
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!