Specs: B&W G3 rev.1 (or whatever you call the first build) Partitioned HD- two large ones with OSX on one and OS9 on the other. Small third drive is all fonts.
Basically, everything works great here. X runs fine, 9 runs fine. Switching between them is the problem. Going from X to 9 is no problem. From 9 to X, though, I have to zap the PRAM in order to get it to boot. It doesn't even get to a login screen. The HD spins a bit, the monitor is black and nothing happens. Zap the PRAM and everything launches fine. And I wouldn't mind this so much, but it requires having my old ADB keyboard on hand instead of my preferred USB one. And it messes with the clock, too
The machine has a non-X compliant OrangeMicro SCSI card. Unplugging that does not help. Unplugging peripherals does not help. Powering down between the OS9 to OSX boot does not help.
Anyone know the key to stopping this? Notes here are helpful, but don't get to the heart of the matter: http://resale.headgap.com/osxnotesbw.html
(FYI, this machine was a total pain when it came to installing X and doesn't like to boot from the CD drive. But firmware is up-to-date and I know of nothing more I could do that might change this behavior or the X-boot problem.)
Regarding the notes at headgap, how would I know which partition 9 is on?
Thanks for any help!
M. Weston wrote:
Specs: B&W G3 rev.1 (or whatever you call the first build) Partitioned HD- two large ones with OSX on one and OS9 on the other. Small third drive is all fonts.
Basically, everything works great here. X runs fine, 9 runs fine. Switching between them is the problem. Going from X to 9 is no problem. From 9 to X, though, I have to zap the PRAM in order to get it to boot. It doesn't even get to a login screen. The HD spins a bit, the monitor is black and nothing happens. Zap the PRAM and everything launches fine. And I wouldn't mind this so much, but it requires having my old ADB keyboard on hand instead of my preferred USB one. And it messes with the clock, too
The machine has a non-X compliant OrangeMicro SCSI card. Unplugging that does not help. Unplugging peripherals does not help. Powering down between the OS9 to OSX boot does not help.
Anyone know the key to stopping this? Notes here are helpful, but don't get to the heart of the matter: http://resale.headgap.com/osxnotesbw.html
(FYI, this machine was a total pain when it came to installing X and doesn't like to boot from the CD drive. But firmware is up-to-date and I know of nothing more I could do that might change this behavior or the X-boot problem.)
Regarding the notes at headgap, how would I know which partition 9 is on?
Thanks for any help!
Is the original HD installed (doesn't sound like it)? I had this exact same problem, and after a dozen or more posts to this NG and a lot of research, I discovered that this particular B&W is very finicky about its hard drives. It only likes the original 4GB drive that it came with. And it REALLY hates having multiple drives.
I finally gave up and traded it to my son for his 400MHz iMac. It runs fine with the drive from the iMac and OS 9.2.2. Go figure.
Here is a link to my original thread in this NG. Hope this will answer your questions:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=4134BD31.3672621C%40comcast.net
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 8:43:19 -0700, M. Weston wrote (in message 1e6319bb.0410260743.5e876012@redacted.invalid):
Specs: B&W G3 rev.1 (or whatever you call the first build) Partitioned HD- two large ones with OSX on one and OS9 on the other. Small third drive is all fonts.
Basically, everything works great here. X runs fine, 9 runs fine. Switching between them is the problem. Going from X to 9 is no problem. From 9 to X, though, I have to zap the PRAM in order to get it to boot. It doesn't even get to a login screen. The HD spins a bit, the monitor is black and nothing happens. Zap the PRAM and everything launches fine. And I wouldn't mind this so much, but it requires having my old ADB keyboard on hand instead of my preferred USB one. And it messes with the clock, too
The machine has a non-X compliant OrangeMicro SCSI card. Unplugging that does not help. Unplugging peripherals does not help. Powering down between the OS9 to OSX boot does not help.
Anyone know the key to stopping this? Notes here are helpful, but don't get to the heart of the matter: http://resale.headgap.com/osxnotesbw.html
(FYI, this machine was a total pain when it came to installing X and doesn't like to boot from the CD drive. But firmware is up-to-date and I know of nothing more I could do that might change this behavior or the X-boot problem.)
Regarding the notes at headgap, how would I know which partition 9 is on?
Thanks for any help!
If the problem only occurs when you switch from 9 to 10, I would be looking at the install of OS 10, or the formatting of the partition it is on real hard. Have you run some good utilities on OS 10 after getting it to boot? Have you done an OS 10 re-install on the partition? What about re-formatting the partition?
In article 1e6319bb.0410260743.5e876012@redacted.invalid, M. Weston tintintx@redacted.invalid wrote:
(FYI, this machine was a total pain when it came to installing X and doesn't like to boot from the CD drive. But firmware is up-to-date and I know of nothing more I could do that might change this behavior or the X-boot problem.)
Possibly the PRAM battery needs to be replaced.
z
In article 1e6319bb.0410260743.5e876012@redacted.invalid, M. Weston tintintx@redacted.invalid wrote:
Specs: B&W G3 rev.1 (or whatever you call the first build) Partitioned HD- two large ones with OSX on one and OS9 on the other. Small third drive is all fonts.
Basically, everything works great here. X runs fine, 9 runs fine. Switching between them is the problem. Going from X to 9 is no problem. From 9 to X, though, I have to zap the PRAM in order to get it to boot. It doesn't even get to a login screen. The HD spins a bit, the monitor is black and nothing happens. Zap the PRAM and everything launches fine. And I wouldn't mind this so much, but it requires having my old ADB keyboard on hand instead of my preferred USB one. And it messes with the clock, too
The machine has a non-X compliant OrangeMicro SCSI card. Unplugging that does not help. Unplugging peripherals does not help. Powering down between the OS9 to OSX boot does not help.
Anyone know the key to stopping this? Notes here are helpful, but don't get to the heart of the matter: http://resale.headgap.com/osxnotesbw.html
(FYI, this machine was a total pain when it came to installing X and doesn't like to boot from the CD drive. But firmware is up-to-date and I know of nothing more I could do that might change this behavior or the X-boot problem.)
Regarding the notes at headgap, how would I know which partition 9 is on?
Thanks for any help!
Please ignore my ignorance [_] but can you reboot while holding down the option key? (Then choose X with the mouse?)
luck, -j
I have a G3 with a similar problem. It often will not boot directly
into OS X, it just hangs. To get it to boot, I have to zap PRAM.
After that, it boots into OS 9 (which is on the same partition as OS
X). After it boots into OS 9, I set the startup disk from the
control panel, restart, and everything works fine for that reboot.
I don't have an answer to fixing the problem, but at least you aren't alone.
BTW, I have a couple more of these machines, and only one of them behaves this way.
$.02 -Ron Shepard
M. Weston tintintx@redacted.invalid wrote:
B&W G3 rev.1 (or whatever you call the first build) Partitioned HD- two large ones with OSX on one and OS9 on the other. Small third drive is all fonts.
If you are using 9.0 you may do better by upgrading to 9.2.2
Thanks for all the responses. One response to all comments:
I'm not really sure what nobodyNOSPAM@redacted.invalid means by "good utilties." I am open to suggestions. Installation of X on this system was a nightmare, as it is very difficult to get the machine to boot from the X install disc. In fact, I only managed to boot from it after I installed all of X (by copying all of disc one to a partition and naming the partition the same thing as the CD). I would not want to voluntarily reinstall X- I'd sooner stick with PRAM zaps until I have enough $$ to get an X-only Mac. All your suggestions are good, though- I just don't have the time for major elective surgery that may not work.
Interesting about the PRAM battery possibly needing replacement. Are there any other symptoms for a weak PRAM battery?
Interestingly, I have not been able to pull up anything when holding the option key down on reboot. (And I'm talking about the option key on the ADB keyboard- my USB keyboard is dead until midway through startup, at which point it isn't possible to pull up the startup manager.) I might try to see if I can'te get the startup manager to appear a few more times.
Ron, it would be interesting to know if your one G3 with an identical problem is a first-release ("rev.1" or whatever it is called, the first version of the G3 that won't take an additional HD), like mine is.
I am using 9.2.2, and everything on it is up-to-date. Panther even installed some updates on it when I launched classic mode.
Thanks for the suggestions.
In article m.weston-F5F331.18125830102004@redacted.invalid, Michael Weston m.weston@redacted.invalid wrote:
- Ron, it would be interesting to know if your one G3 with an identical problem is a first-release ("rev.1" or whatever it is called, the first version of the G3 that won't take an additional HD), like mine is.
The B&W G3 I have has a SCSI disk. I have attempted to install an EIDE disk, and it simply does not work on this model. This is apparently a well-known problem with these B&W G3 machines, but I didn't know about it before spending a few days wrestling with the disk installation. I have installed additional SCSI disks before in B&W G3 machines and they do work alright, although I don't think I have tried one in this particular machine.
BTW, I did have problems installing 10.0 and 10.1 from CD on this machine. The CD would sometimes not be recognized. However, 10.2 and 10.3 have installed with no problems from CD.
Here's another odd thing about B&W G3 machines. I have an SGI SW1600 display (bought in 1998) attached to one of them. It is driven from a PCI card. This setup worked fine with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2 with no special drivers or firmware updates. However, it does not work with 10.3. The B&W G3 that has this display is apparently stuck forever at 10.2.8. Furthermore, the PCI card does not work in newer machines (G4 or G5). It is still a nice display, but with these compatibility problems, it looks like its future is limited.
$.02 -Ron Shepard
In article m.weston-F5F331.18125830102004@redacted.invalid, Michael Weston m.weston@redacted.invalid wrote:
- Interesting about the PRAM battery possibly needing replacement. Are there any other symptoms for a weak PRAM battery?
Time & Date will be reset, if the PRAM battery is to blame.
Unless the T&D are reset, but the network time server fixes it promptly at startup, in which case that wouldn't be much of an indicator... Maybe turn off network time settings while troubleshooting. If, after the screen problem occurs, the T&D are still correct, then the PRAM battery is not at fault.
- chit