[question] iMac died, need some help

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digman

Registered
Hey guys, ran into a serious problem here.
Awhile back, I got an older iMac, and installed Linux on it. I killed off all the partions and replaced them with Linux ones. I finally got my hands on a complete set of the OS (8.6 - 10.3) and every time I try and use the CDs (all the bootable ones) I get this error:
"MAC-PARTS: the specified partion is not valid"

What I got from the Apple website was that it probabbly couldn't find the "startup disk," because the finder icon flashes up on the screen, followed by a question mark.

I'm thinking that I have to somehow get Darwin over to the old thing, and make partions that the CDs can boot from, but I'm not sure.

Any suggestions, help, guides, etc. will be VERY appreciated. Thanks again guys.
-Digman
 
That error is saying that the partition you want to install on is not formatted correctly. If you use Drive setup, format one partition with the OS CD. Then install.
 
Hold down the C whilst restarting the machine... or did you try this already?
Are your copies burned, or are they originals?
 
That wont help man, it's starts up to YaBoot (Linux booter), with the options for Mandrake Linux, CD, and Open Firmware.

But yeah, my CD's are burnt copies, I'm thiking that maybe I burnt they at too high of a speed.
 
All the discks were made by an independent burner. The thing wasn't hooked up to a computer, it was a straight copy of eveything on the disc.
 
A correctly setup bootable CD, assuming it has system software capable of booting the Mac, shouldn't care what kind of format the hard drive has. The CD is either bootable, or it is not bootable. Try one of the CDs in a different Mac (one without Linux partitions) I bet it won't boot...
You can always disconnect the hard drive and try booting from the CD. If you see the same error, then the problem is not with the hard drive, but a faulty CD burn.
 
Ah, I ran into this same problem -- how to rid myself of Yaboot. Well, I finally found the answer: boot into open firmware (hold command-option-o-f while rebooting) and then, at the prompt, enter:

reset-nvram
(then hit enter, and then enter: )

reset-all
(the Mac should reboot after you press enter. This should get rid of Yaboot for you, which will then allow you to boot from CDs and such.)

I don't mean to alarm you, but one of my best hard drives died right around the time that I installed and tried to un-install Linux and Yaboot on my machine. Now the hard drive doesn't work at all... coincidence, or not?! There's a documented feature on YellowDogLinux's site that says something to the effect of "If you use the 3.0 YellowDogLinux installers and have more than one hard drive, then you may be subject to a condition that renders the boot drive (the target install drive for Linux) inoperable because a required partition gets renamed to something it shouldn't get renamed to" or something like that. At any rate, it's probably coincidence, but it still kinda irks me.

Try the nvram reset as described above and see if that helps.
 
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