iMac 233mhz revB not booting

[MonkeyJamboree]

yup, all the cables are attached, none loose, and i doubt any are broken - they havent been moved much at all since i got the machine, and it worked previously. Any other suggestions?

[MonkeyJamboree]

i don't understand at all... you would think that an installation cd would boot just fine and allow you to overwrite the data if you wanted... the drive even spins up, but just get a grey screen when trying to do so.

[MonkeyJamboree]

another update: i've tried holding down the option key, it brings up no menus whatsoever... when holding c and os9 install disc is in the drive, it seems to freeze at an all grey screen... when resetting pram, does not help, even after 4 or 5 restart tones... when booting into open firmware, it will still not boot from the hdd or the cd (and i'm not sure what other commands i can use there)... and all it does it flash the question mark of doom, and MOCK me with that smiley face... someone please help!

[mononoke]

I have final found someone elese having the same problem... im having the exact same issues with my G3 333mhz processor apple... i put in a 60 gig harddrive... it has all the updates but when i try to boot off the osX cd all i get is a grey screen with the question mark that is supper grayed out... like i can barly see it... i got this computer used from someone elese on ebay... Plz help! im an Apple noob but i build windows clones so im fairly computer savey. PLZ HELP ME OH GODS OF APPLE OS!

[eric2006]

From lowendmac.com:

Mac OS X

If you have a hard drive over 8 GB in size, you must partition it, and the partition containing OS X must be completely within the first 8 GB of space or you will not be able to run OS X. (If you are creating the partition within OS X, it must be 7.45 GB or smaller as reported by Disk Utility, because sometimes a GB is billion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes.)

Non-Apple upgrades and peripherals (such as unsupported USB devices, replacement drives, and third-party memory) may cause problems when installing or booting into Mac OS X.

Be sure to read and follow Apple's "Read Before You Install" install instructions to increase the likelihood of getting OS X installed and running on the first try.

[maz94protege]

My MacMini hdd died weeks ago, and thats all i got was that question mark. I assume you have a CD or DVD drive inside. Hold down the OPTION key or the C key when it boots up to run it from the CD or DVD drive. run Disk Utility and you may just need to repair it from there. IF that doesnt work reboot it a few times til it recognizes the drive. May help to format the drive if it is not already...Disk Utility will do this for you. if it still doesnt work, take it into an Apple Store and one of the mac genuises will help you out while your in the store.

Email me if you need some more info. mazdaboi@mac.com

[eric2006]

Originally Posted by maz94protege

My MacMini hdd died weeks ago, and thats all i got was that question mark. I assume you have a CD or DVD drive inside. Hold down the OPTION key or the C key when it boots up to run it from the CD or DVD drive. run Disk Utility and you may just need to repair it from there. IF that doesnt work reboot it a few times til it recognizes the drive. May help to format the drive if it is not already...Disk Utility will do this for you. if it still doesnt work, take it into an Apple Store and one of the mac genuises will help you out while your in the store.

Email me if you need some more info. mazdaboi@mac.com

That's good info, but the older iMacs cannot boot off of a hard drive that has a system partition over 8 GB, no matter what the condition of the drive.

[MonkeyJamboree]

the strange thing is that i now have Xubuntu linux running on it (VERY slowly i may add), so i know the hdd, cd, and all peripherals work fine. for some reason mac discs just plain don't want to boot in it... and i don't know why.