imac g3 333mhz won't boot os 9.2 after fresh install

N

natern

Registered
Hey there,
I just bought an old grape imac g3, running at 333Mhz with 160MB ram and a 8.5GB hard drive. I just performed a fresh install of OS 9.2, but on reboot I just get that oh-so-annoying flashing question mark/mac logo. I tried booting from the cd and reblessing the system as I read on various posts by dragging the system folder to the desktop and back again. Ialso tried resetting pram using Control, option, P-F (or mac button... whichever it is.. it beeped 4 times before I stopped), tried resetting nram and reset-all in Open Firmware.... I'm pretty sure I've tried almost everything out there, but it still refused to boot from the hard drive. I'm pretty sure the drive is good, because everything still seems to be on it once I boot back up with the cd. The ONLY thing I'm still wondering about is the battery, because this is an older machine the battery may not be any good in it. But I don't know if it should still be able to boot without a good battery if I haven't unplugged it.
Anyways, I bought this as a Christmas present for my little sister who is thinking about getting a mac laptop for college, I figured this would be a good chance to learn the operating system before she heads out and buys one just before leaving for college.
Thanks a lot!
Nathan
 
If the battery is dead, that could explain why the iMac is forgetting it has a disk to start up from.

How long have you left it on the flashing quetsion mark screen? Even if the iMac "forgot" where to start up from, if you leave it for a few minutes on that screen, it should automatically find the hard drive and boot from it.
 
I left it there for 10 minutes just to be sure, and it just kept blinking its little heart out. What other possibilities could it be if it is not the battery? I've tried different "setenv boot-device ...." from other posts and articles on the web and none of those have worked either. I decided to check the battery. I unplugged it, popped open the case and removed the battery. I took out my trusty digital multimeter and read a solid 3.65V. So the problem is definately NOT the battery. Anyone know what could be causing this system to not boot from the hard drive? (Oh, forgot to mention, but I did partition the drive with a 1GB primary partition and a 7.5GB partition for files to avoid the problem with not booting if the first partition was larger than 8GB)
Thanks.
 
I have been having problems getting my 333Mhz to boot up in OSX. But if I zap the pram, it starts up. But I have to do it every time, unless the last start up was with a CD of the old system. You may have the zapping letters wrong. Mine starts up with "comand-option-P-R" all together when you turn it on. (As my husband says "you need two hands and your nose.") OS 9.2.2 works only with OSX. Someone suggested I need OS 9.1 as a stand-alone.
 
jerryeng said:
I have been having problems getting my 333Mhz to boot up in OSX. But if I zap the pram, it starts up. But I have to do it every time
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That sounds like a dead motherboard battery to me -- the startup disk preference is stored in PRAM, and when the battery goes dead, common symptoms are the system clock reverting to some date in 1970 and the computer "forgetting" which startup disk to use.

OS 9.2.2 works only with OSX. Someone suggested I need OS 9.1 as a stand-alone.
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No, OS 9.2.2 is a stand-alone operating system as well. I run it on one of my computers. OS 9.2.2 is recommended for the best Classic experience, but you can also boot straight into OS 9.2.2 if your computer supports it (yours does).
 
I managed to find the problem why my system would could not find the OS files to boot from the hard drive after basically trying everything. I didn't think this would have been a possibility, but I guess it was. I bought the imac on ebay (for $39.99 I might add, however with shipping and import duty the total was around $140 U.S.) and it said it was preinstalled with OS 9.2.2, which sounded great, but it didnt boot up, I downloaded Ubuntu linux live and install versions of the cd, couldnt get the install to boot after the install, and the live locked up just before the graphical display was fully loaded. Anyways, it turns out the HARD DRIVE JUMPER WAS SET WRONG!! It was set as slave or something other than master/single, so althought the software used to install to the drive worked perfectly, the bios couldnt find the drive. :p I fixed the problem and am now happily running OS 10.3, although I COULD use some more ram for it, 160MB doesn't quite give you the smoothest or quietest system. I'm sure my sister will be very happy with it when she opens it up at christmas and finds her very first mac. :D
 
Glad to hear you got it working. If I'm not mistaken, the iMac's CD drive and the hard drive are on the same bus. Does the CD drive still work -- reads (and possibly writes) CDs O.K. after re-jumpering the drive?

If so, I'm sure she'll love it!
 
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