Panther boot flakiness on B&W G3
Hey all,
I'm setting up a B&W G3 for my Dad's first Mac. I had a bit of trouble with the network port (turned out to be a bad cable) and in the troubleshooting process I zapped the P-RAM.
Ever since then it has a strange boot-up behavior. When allowed to boot normally, the usual X apple logo will show up briefly and then a crossed circle (like on a no-smoking sign (/) ) However, when I use cmd-opt-shift-del to skip the first boot-volume, I get the flashing question-mark-folder icon for a few moments followed by the X apple logo and a normal boot.
Panther X.3.7is the only operating system installed on the only hard drive in the computer. It's a rev 2 B&W G3 400 with 256 megs of RAM.
It's not a big deal, but it's Dad's first Mac and I want it to make a good first impression so that there will be a second Mac. There is a new Hard Drive on the way that will replace this one as the primary drive, but it won't be here until Dad has been home and gone again. (he's an American Airlines pilot) Anyone know if that's likely to fix the problem.
Incidentally, that brings up another question. Is there an easy way to "clone" everything from the old drive onto the new one. Once that's done, I'll wipe the old drive and put 9 on it, but I've already got the existing installation just right. I'd hate to have to do it all over again just because I was too impatient to wait for the new drive.
I'm setting up a B&W G3 for my Dad's first Mac. I had a bit of trouble with the network port (turned out to be a bad cable) and in the troubleshooting process I zapped the P-RAM.
Ever since then it has a strange boot-up behavior. When allowed to boot normally, the usual X apple logo will show up briefly and then a crossed circle (like on a no-smoking sign (/) ) However, when I use cmd-opt-shift-del to skip the first boot-volume, I get the flashing question-mark-folder icon for a few moments followed by the X apple logo and a normal boot.
Panther X.3.7is the only operating system installed on the only hard drive in the computer. It's a rev 2 B&W G3 400 with 256 megs of RAM.
It's not a big deal, but it's Dad's first Mac and I want it to make a good first impression so that there will be a second Mac. There is a new Hard Drive on the way that will replace this one as the primary drive, but it won't be here until Dad has been home and gone again. (he's an American Airlines pilot) Anyone know if that's likely to fix the problem.
Incidentally, that brings up another question. Is there an easy way to "clone" everything from the old drive onto the new one. Once that's done, I'll wipe the old drive and put 9 on it, but I've already got the existing installation just right. I'd hate to have to do it all over again just because I was too impatient to wait for the new drive.
Comments
Go into System Preferences, choose Startup Disk and select the copy of OS X you have installed and wish to boot from. Quit System Preferences. Done.
(The reason for the behaviour of your B&WG3, I believe, is that you zapped the PRAM which erased the info about which System should be used to boot your Mac. If this is the reason for the behaviour, re-entering this info in System Preferences will "cure your Mac".)
-matts
Originally posted by Guartho
Incidentally, that brings up another question. Is there an easy way to "clone" everything from the old drive onto the new one. Once that's done, I'll wipe the old drive and put 9 on it, but I've already got the existing installation just right. I'd hate to have to do it all over again just because I was too impatient to wait for the new drive.
Carbon Copy Cloner does exactly this