Can't Boot: DEFAULT CATCH!, Code=1800

[Patrick Houston]

iMac G5, struck by lightning about 2 months ago.

Started having boot problems after that. It would take about 5-7 tries before it would finally boot. Intermittent crashes, freezes and lockups since then.

I've suspected a corrupted disk (still gives the Happy Mac chime during power on) and have been pulling all my important files off of it (onto my new intel iMac) over the past few weeks.

This morning, it won't boot for anything and gives me a constant, scrolling message:

DEFAULT CATCH!, Code=1800 at %SRR0 00000000 ff845b6c %SSR1: 100000000.0200b030

The fan comes on and it just scrolls that message over and over.

I tried to use my 10.5.2 disk to boot from and now it won't let me have my disk back.

Any help on how I can:

A: eject my OSX 10.5.2 disk?
B: get this to boot so I can reformat the drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

patrick

[ElDiabloConCaca]

A. Boot while holding down the mouse button. That should eject the CD during the startup phase. If that doesn't work, try booting into open firmware and ejecting the CD that way:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...31210193237190

B. If you can't boot from the CD to install the operating system holding down the 'c' or 'option' key at boot, then you can try installing from another Mac via FireWire Target Disk Mode.

[Patrick Houston]

El Diablo,

Neither of those options worked.

Anyone else got a suggestion?

Am I going to have to crack open the case to get to the little manual eject hole?