Apple CD-Drive Not Reading

Hello
I'm not sure whether this is a software or hardware related problem, but here it is:

I have an old beige g3 desktop. My CD-Rom is not reading CDs when I am started up from the HD in OS 9, BUT I can start up using a OS 9 CD. It's making me very frustrated, anyone know what could be causing this problem? thanks

the "Apple CD/DVD Driver" is turned on... oh, if this helps, the problem seem to have originated after I tried to put a DVD drive into the machine, took it out, and put the CD drive back in. I've also reinstalled OS 9 a few times. Still not working, I'm going to try one more time and then throw it out the window i think

Blue Velvet said:

Does the DVD drive work?

Did you change any of the jumper settings on the back of the CD drive?
You could experiment with those...

Click to expand...

DVD does work, pulled from my B&W. and booted OS9 from a CD, will not boot with Jaguar DVD tho, and wont display discs on the desktop. the jumper settings are set as master, as is the HD, but the CD drive was working before with these settings

Blue Velvet said:

No wonder you want to throw it out the window... does System Profiler see anything?

Don't toss it though. Somebody else will come along and give some good advice...

Click to expand...

System Profiler does not see it. It doesn't show up in the control strip cd thing either... both the CD and DVD drive can start up using the OS9 CD, but neither can read CDs when started up via the harddisk

Blue Velvet said:

When I once had an old beige clone, I remember swapping the ATA cables around so the CDrom was running off the former HDs bus and vice versa. Tried this? Or is it a SCSI drive?

If this doesn't work, I'll have to admit the extent of my total ignorance.

Sorry...

Click to expand...

I have thought of trying it, but didn't think it would make a difference. I'll try it and get back to you all...

Mechcozmo said:

Therein lies the problem. Two ATA drives on the same bus (cable) must be set as master or slave. Cable select just sets them according to their position on the cable, which won't matter with a CD or DVD drive but for a hard drive does. Let the hard drive be set as master and the CD drive as slave...that might help.

Click to expand...

no no no... maybe you misunderstood, they are on seperate buses. I may try putting them on the same bus though, but first im going to try the switch

Mechcozmo said:

Hmm. Odd. What happens when they are on the same bus?

If you cannot get the cable to fit just leave em sitting outside the box. They should be fine.

Click to expand...

Switch and single bus showed no difference, still can only boot from CD... now, the HD will not boot into OS9... Just have the floppy with the blinking question mark... I'm beginning to think I have a lemon here

on the bus: HD is set as master, with CD as slave... no difference, also tried HD as master with slave present, and CD as slave

Also, the HD is brand new, i bought it on friday

Also, of note problems started after I tried to upgrade from os x.0 to os x.1, installation failed. Then I booted into OS 9 and tried to get onto my DSL model, macpoet said i was connected, but webpages would not load. Also, the ethernet card i installed in the pci card would not be recognized, even after installing the drive... Removing PCI cards did not solve any problems.... the only thing i can think to do next is maybe run the hardware test cd, but i dont know if i have one or were it would be

MacNut said:

How much bigger is the new HD, could it not be recognized by the os?

Click to expand...

It's a 120 GB, but as I said before, starting up on it before was not a problem. I know about the 127 GB limit.

Blue Velvet said:

Are you now saying that your HD is not working now as well?

This G3 sounds cursed. Is it messing everything you try & connect to it?

Click to expand...

Everything works fine when booted via OS9 CD... Sees everything...

It just wont start up via the HD anymore

Blue Velvet said:

Weird... I'm stumped.

How is the HD formatted. Just plain old HFS or HFS+ ?

It won't boot in 9 if it's journaled. Depending on how old the G3 is, it may not even like HFS+, although that's unlikely...

Clutching at straws, I'm afraid.

Click to expand...

I'm stumped too. The HD was brand new, I just bought it on Friday. The HD is formatted whatever OS9 would format it as. I'm going to try and put the HD in another G3 (B&W) when I get it, probably this week or next.

EDIT: GOOD NEWS! I thought about trying to zap the pram... I'm not quite sure which button it was, but I starts up, AND sees the CD drive when I hold "option" as it starts up, not holding option has it not see the system foler. What could be causing this?

Mechcozmo said:

I heard that you cannot start off of a hard drive partition larger than 8GB or 7.4 actual GB. I don't recall if that applies to OS 9 however...

Try setting them to cable select. That way you are dead sure that the jumpers are not messed up.

And I am really on this one...

Click to expand...

I was under the impression this only applied to Mac OS X

See above post, i think its promising

Blue Velvet said:

Maybe the system folder is not 'blessed' but... Yayy!

Blessing info here:
http://developer.apple.com/testing/docs/TNblessdebless.html

Zapping PRAM: It's something I've read about doing a million times, but never have done myself.

Gripping stuff, the saga continues...



Keep us updated.

Click to expand...

The system folder has the happy mac icon on it, so I don't think its unblessed, but I will look into. How do you zap the PRAM on a Beige G3? And what does holding the option button do during a start up? I thought when zapping the PRAM you hear the start up chime 3 times or something?