# Motorola StarMax 3000



## DevilRocks (May 29, 2005)

hey everyone, i my x86 winXP machines motherboard just failed, so my computer teacher gave me a motorola starmax 3000.

So far i put in a cdrw burner in it as a slave on the master cdrom. The burner is not detected. I am also running os 7.5.3 and would like to upgrade to os 9.1 and was told by low end mac that it was possible. The problem i am having with this was i have the mac os 9.1 dmg image on my hard drive of my other x86 windows computer. I need to burn the image to a cd but dont know how to do it, can anyone help me with that? Also i will need help setting up networking on it with a nic i recently put in. So there i s alot of thing that i need help with.

Please help me! 

the first thing i would like to get help with would be burning the image, i am using nero6. Can anyone help me?

thanks 

-Thomas Johnson


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## Cheryl (May 30, 2005)

Thomas, 

That image you have is probably the update and not the full install. You will need to obtain the full install OS 9 CD. 

Make sure you have the max of RAM installed 160 mb before you install OS 9. 

And to get that CD burner working you will need Roxio's Toast version 5.x for OS 9.


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## DevilRocks (May 30, 2005)

Thank you for replying,

but i got the image and it was the full version of mac os 9.1 So i am pretty sure it's real. Also it takes up somewhere between 500 and 600MB. I dont know if i have 160MB of ram, i know they are sims i will check in on that so thx there 

But do you know how i could convert it to iso?


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## nixgeek (May 30, 2005)

DevilRocks, check this out...

http://vu1tur.eu.org/tools/

Gotta love google...  

PS: To see how much RAM you have, go to the Apple menu on the top left, and Select "About this Macintosh".  There you will see how much physical RAM you have.

If you want to get more memory, make sure you get 3.3 volt 168-pin EDO RAM.  On those systems, there are three slots: two will hold a 64 MB module and the other will only hold a 32 MB module.  It will say on the motherboard whether it is for single bank (the 32 MB one) or double bank (32 or 64 MB).  It looks as though it will hold PC-xx memory but it doesn't take this memory.  It is specifically 3.3 volt 168-pin EDO DIMM modules.


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## DevilRocks (May 30, 2005)

hmm...well thx for the link. But i have already tried dmg2iso (didnt work) and i know i did it right cuz it worked with panther dmgs. and the other program is in pearl script and i dont know how to execute it. About the ram i have the 3, 32mb sims, 96mb total (or something like that).

I would also like to know, how big of a hard drive could i put in it?

Thx for the help so far :-D

But i still need more help lol


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## DevilRocks (Jun 1, 2005)

Ok, umm...sorry to double post but...i still need help lol. 

Alright, i got the mac os cd's burned at a friends house who had osX, was a f****n pain in the ass to do it, but i did it. I try to install mac os 9.1 but it wont boot from the cd? Then i try and open the file while the os is running after it loaded up, and it says "cannot run file, see documentation for more details." I search finder and find documentation.html and it doesnt have internet tools setup. I dont know where to go from here. Can someone please help me?

Also, i was told toast 5x would be good for os9 all i found was toast 6x will it work too?

Please help me

thx

-Thomas Johnson


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## nixgeek (Jun 1, 2005)

It sounds like that image you downloaded might have been bad.  You might have to purchase a copy of Mac OS 9.1 or find it some other way.  Check out Low End Mac (http://www.lowendmac.com) for prices on Mac OS 9.1 (9.2 will not install be default on this system, but you aren't missing much) or earlier versions like 8.6.  These shouldn't be too expensive to get since they have been 

Apple does provide System 7.5.3 for free legally if you don't mind sticking with that.  You can then upgrade it to 7.5.5 which is still pretty snappy.


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## DevilRocks (Jun 1, 2005)

Ok i tried booting from the cd again, this time i was holding down the "c" key, and it didnt work. I am using an atx keyboard and ps2 mouse. It has the ports and they work fine, do you think that could be the reason it's not working. But then again, it still wont work while the os is running. i tried toast and it cant read the cd it has the option for initialize and it cant initialize cuz all it would do is try to format the cd which would do no good. Also the burner in the mac, i can hear it spin up while its booting but the os wont detect it

does anyone know what to do next?


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## Cheryl (Jun 1, 2005)

When you burned that CD with OS 9 on it, did you also put a System folder on it? 

In order for a CD to be bootable, you need a system folder on it so the computer can use it to start up. So you would have the installer on the CD along with a working system folder. You will need to copy one off a computer that has OS 9 on it minus all the third party files. 

You can not run the OS 9 installer while the hard drive is used as the start up. You are in a catch 22. 

Here is the link for Toast 5. 
http://www.roxio.com/en/products/toast5/index.jhtml

You are probably better off investing in an OS 9 CD full install as NixGeek said.


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## DevilRocks (Jun 2, 2005)

Well i dont know if it has the system files on it, its an iso. Is there a way i can put in the mac and find the folder? tell me how to do it. Also, do you have a toast iso, or dmg, of 5x there is no way i am gonna spend money on this computer lol. Instant message me or email me about getting me that free somehow. 

And a question i asked before that i would like you to answer is, how big of a hard drive could i put in it?

Also, Cheryl, it would be nice if you could instant message me ya know.

Please help me  lol


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## nixgeek (Jun 2, 2005)

As for the hard drive space, any ATA-IDE hard drive should do.

Here's an idea of what you can put on there.

http://mail.maclaunch.com/Lists/starmax/Message/4816.html

Consider that the controller isn't new and not going to perfrm fast, but that can be fixed by installing a PCI IDE controller that is supported under Mac OS Classic.  That will allow you to increase the HD speed as well as support for larger HDs without partitioning.


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## DevilRocks (Jun 3, 2005)

Yea, i looked at those, i am pretty suprized on how much you can upgrade it lol. But i am just pretty much lookin to upgrade cheap ya know. 

Do you think i could just buy a cheap used/refurbished 10GB or 15GB and put it in and install os 9.1 on it? Also, is there a way i could do firewire or usb, i have pci slots, but i dont know if it would have the driver. I have the some firewire cards, Ethernet cards, and modems.  they all came out of x86 machines, do you think i have any chance of getting them to work .

I still have the issue of getting os 9installed, sorry i havent been on more, i have been *REALLY *busy lol.  but i still need all your support lol


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## Kent Durvin (Jun 10, 2005)

I recommend that you get OS 8.6. It uses far less RAM then 9.X, and that machine does not hold much RAM. It should run fairly well, but there is no CD driver in the Apple CD for non-Apple CD drives, or to format drives. That was on the original CD for the StarMax. They provided CD-ROM Toolkit and Hard Drive Toolkit by FWB. The serial numbers are in a file on the CD.
You need the original CD. Your best source would be either a Mac user group, or another used StarMax.


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## sinclair_tm (Jun 17, 2005)

first of all, i have a starmac 5500, and have been through some of these same problems.  as afr as the os 9 cd, i always use a real apple cd and never have had a problem, so i'm not much help on the disk image problems.  and 8.6 does run snappy, but i never noticed much difference when i went to 9.1.  as far as keyboard, use a apple abd board and not a ps2.  i could never get a ps2 to work right, the os seemed to ignore some keystrokes.  but any mouse i tryed seemed to work.  mine has the same ram as yours, and it will do, but memory hungrey apps, like photoshop, will give you fitts.  even maxing out the ram will not help there, just run one major app at a time.  as far as pci cards, i put a usb card in and the os 9 usb drivers used it just fine.  as for the nic, it saw it sometimes.  the other cards most likely be simialir, will work, or hit and mis.
now for the cd drive, the ide channels on this are singal only.  they do not support master/slave, which is why your cdrw is not showing up.  and using os 9, any cd drive showed up.  as far as harddrive, this mobo may also have the 8gig limit that the apple macs did.  i always used the onboard scsi for the harddrive, so i'm not sure.
i help some of this helps.  they were a nice well made computer in their time, but a little underpowered for today.


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