Powermac G3 in a sorry state

[Steve Dimitriad]

Hi

I have acquired the following system.


Powermac G3 Blue and White 300mhz
(Rev 1)/64mb/9gb


The OS installed is 8.5.1. I do not have the install disks :-(

Mac OS Rom 1.2

I am a new Mac user. I have a plan to move away from the world of windows, from which I am quite competant to systrem support level, to Macs.

Having a poke around the G3, it appears obvious to me that there are serious problems. extensions, files etc are missing or are duplicated. there is even a set of images for a os 7.x installation.

First and foremost, the cd drive does not read cd's. It spins but no image appears on the desktop (sorry, Finder!)

I sherlocked for any 'cd' extensions, but there are none there.
I understand this is crucial for the cd to work. And I reason that it is crucial for the cd to work for me to get any further.

Any ideas on how I can get started on cleaning this mac up would be most appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

[RacerX]

Originally Posted by Steve Dimitriad

Any ideas on how I can get started on cleaning this mac up would be most appreciated.

Best starting point would be to do the following:

1. Go to the Apple Menu down to Control Panels over to Extension Manager.
2. When the Extension Manager comes up (and it may prompt you about missing/changed extensions, don't worry about it), there should be a pull down menu for the extension set name. Click on it and select Mac OS 8.5 All.
3. Click Restart at the bottom of the Extension Manager window.

If you are still having issues with the CD-ROM drive after this, it may actually be bad and need replacing. And it'll need to be replaced with a Mac bootable CD/DVD/CDRW drive (a replacement CD drive for the system shouldn't run more than $10).

[Steve Dimitriad]

Hey

Thanks for your response.

I have tried doing this. However, there is actually no apple cd rom extension in the list, which makes me think this is the issue. What do you think?

Thanks
Steve

[powermac]

You could try to purchase OS8 install CD, or better yet OS9, and do a fresh reinstall of the system. If the extension for the CD drive is gone, I am not sure how to get it back with out a install disk, unless the extension ended up in the disabled extension folder, if there is one.

[RacerX]

If it is the CD-ROM extension that is missing, then this should fix it:

Apple CD Extension

[Steve Dimitriad]

Originally Posted by RacerX

If it is the CD-ROM extension that is missing, then this should fix it:

Apple CD Extension

Thanks Racerx thats a great start. Now how do i get it onto the Mac!

Internet is dead (no extensions), it wont recogonise my usb key or card reader. No zip drive or floppy drive. Take the hd out and put it on another mac and drag the file across? I dont have access to another mac.

Is there something obvious I am missing?