Booting problem

placeboplacebo
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
OK, here's the deal: I went into the Startup Disk Prefpane, and I spotted Mac OS 10.0 as a startup option. I had never used 10.0 before, and I was curious about what things were like before 10.1 and Jaguar. So I click on it, restart, and then the problems start to happen.



The screen, upon startup, shows a crude rendering of a floppy diskette, with a '?' blinking in the middle of it. So much for 10.0. So I insert the Jaguar install disk, and re-install. All is happy, all is well. (small detail: when the Installer prompts me to select a volume on which to instal, it displays a yello triangle with an exclamation point in it. Then I have to switch to Archive and install) I boot into jaguar, but I forget to change the thing in the Startup Disk prefpane...



I shut down my computer for the night, and in the morning, the same 'floppy with bliking question mark' appears. I go to install Jaguar again, but I have no free space to do so.



So I try booting off an OS 9 install disk, but OS 9 won't acknowledge that my HDD is present, because it was formatted in without OS 9 compatibility.



So what do I do?





I will be infinitely greatful for any help I recieve.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    first thing i would try is resetting parameter ram ("p-ram"). in this memory is stored which partition/disk is your startup disk as well as several other important little things. to reset it on most comps, at startup (before the chime!), push down and hold: command, option, p, and r. after the chime, and two extra chimes (total chime count: 3), your p-ram is reset. now it should try to boot into any hd it can find with a good system folder. sometimes it takes a long time for it to search through all of them, don't be discouraged if you see the disk/question mark. leave it alone for a few minutes, and return. if/when it does startup make sure to explicitly set a good drive as the startup in sys prefs so you dont have to wait on next reboot.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    jimdreamworxjimdreamworx Posts: 1,097member
    On boot, try holding down the option key, see if you get more than one volume from which to select.



    I doubt you did this, but when you installed Jaguar, did you change the file system from HFS+ to UFS? That would make it incompatible with OS 9. More likely, you may just need to update the drives on the HD with OS 9 drivers, which you should be able to do with the Jaguar CD.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JimDreamworx

    On boot, try holding down the option key, see if you get more than one volume from which to select.



    I doubt you did this, but when you installed Jaguar, did you change the file system from HFS+ to UFS? That would make it incompatible with OS 9. More likely, you may just need to update the drives on the HD with OS 9 drivers, which you should be able to do with the Jaguar CD.



    No I did not install the OS 9 drivers. STUPID ME. I tried booting into terminal mode, and I was successful, now how do I find my hard drive? Since I booted off the CD, there is no actual "volumes" directory, because it is a CD-Rom.



    Does anyone know of a way I can syphon off some files, so I can reinstall Jaguar?



    Or can I burn a boot disk of my dad's HD?
  • Reply 4 of 10
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Or maybe some startup keys?



    Any help would be appreciated. I mean, really appreciated. I mean, really really appreciated...
  • Reply 5 of 10
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    I had never used 10.0 before, and I was curious about what things were like before 10.1 and Jaguar. So I click on it, restart, and then the problems start to happen.



    Now you know what it was like.



    Any good news today? Or are you still in limbo?
  • Reply 6 of 10
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 709

    Now you know what it was like.



    Any good news today? Or are you still in limbo?



    Let me get make this clear: I never got to try 10.0. But I guess not starting up is something that was on 10.0's feature list, eh?



    I booted Jaguar from the CD, but all I can access is the installer and Disk Utility, right? Is there any way I can boot off a CD and get a desktop, so I can remove files?



    I booted into jaguar, and accessed the terminal at boot. But how do I mount my HD and access my files?
  • Reply 7 of 10
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Did you run Disk Utility...repair permissions and all that jazz? Also, like Jim said, it couldn't hurt to install the OS9 drivers (also in Disk Utility).



    Sorry I can't give any advice on Terminal lingo. That shite scares me.



    Hmm, an idea just came to mind...have you tried connecting to your Dad's Mac in FW target disk mode? You might be able to grab your files that way, then just perform a clean install on your iMac.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 709

    Did you run Disk Utility...repair permissions and all that jazz? Also, like Jim said, it couldn't hurt to install the OS9 drivers (also in Disk Utility).



    Sorry I can't give any advice on Terminal lingo. That shite scares me.



    Hmm, an idea just came to mind...have you tried connecting to your Dad's Mac in FW target disk mode? You might be able to grab your files that way, then just perform a clean install on your iMac.



    That occured to me yesterday, but we have no FW cable available.



    How about Ethernet? Can I use a crossover cable for target disk mode?



    And...does anyone know how to mount a drive in the terminal on a read-only boot disk?
  • Reply 9 of 10
    jimdreamworxjimdreamworx Posts: 1,097member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    That occured to me yesterday, but we have no FW cable available.



    How about Ethernet? Can I use a crossover cable for target disk mode?



    And...does anyone know how to mount a drive in the terminal on a read-only boot disk?



    Target disk work only with FireWire, and you can find out about it here:

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583



    As you want to remove files, to get to a desktop boot, you will have to use an OS 9 CD, but have those OS 9 HD drivers installed...



    No FireWire cable? And I thought everyone had an iPod!
  • Reply 10 of 10
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Well, the party's over...I did a clean install. There wasn;t much data on it anyway.



    Thanks for your support efforts, though.
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