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matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
Hi my TiBook867 has Tiger and classic installed. For kicks I selected os9 as the startup volume and then restarted the system. I was greeted by a tiny disc in the middle of the screen with a blinking question mark. I tried using the "x or option x" to get back to osx, using the install cd repair to fix the drive and even tried zapping the pram, but nothing is getting me back to the osx. Anyone have a trick that I havent thought of or had this happen to them?

Thanks
 

aquajet

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2005
2,386
9
VA
Press and hold the "option" key after a reboot. This should give you the boot menu, where you can select your startup disk.
 

matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
I just tried that but it only shows one volume of "macintosh HD" and it looks like it has the os9 logo in the corner, i click it and it takes me to the same blinking questionmark disk. any other suggestions?
 

aquajet

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2005
2,386
9
VA
Hmmm...Maybe try resetting NVRAM:

press and hold "command-option-O-F" after a reboot

at the prompt, type the following, pressing return after each line:

reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

the computer should reboot after the last entry.
 

matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
its still doing it! this is so bizarre. is their a command in the firmware to manually choose the path to a startup volume or something?

thanks so much for your help
 

aquajet

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2005
2,386
9
VA
matthews1492 said:
its still doing it! this is so bizarre. is their a command in the firmware to manually choose the path to a startup volume or something?

I'm not certain. You could try typing "mac-boot" in open firmware, see if that does anything.

What utility did you use to check the drive? An OS X install disk?
 

matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
Yeah it was the osx 10.2 that came with the computer. i ran the repair disk, but it checked out ok. Would installing 10.2 onto my firewire ipod and booting from that hypothetically work? And once into osx10.2 select the osx 10.4 volume that is on my HD?
 

aquajet

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2005
2,386
9
VA
matthews1492 said:
Would installing 10.2 onto my firewire ipod and booting from that hypothetically work? And once into osx10.2 select the osx 10.4 volume that is on my HD?

Yes, you can install OS X onto an iPod and then boot off of it.

I've never tried running an older version of disk utility on a drive with a newer operating system. I would have suggested using your 10.4 install disk, but I assume you don't have one?

If you don't have any other utilities to work with right now (such as disk warrior), you could go ahead and try the iPod trick and see if you can select your 10.4 system using the startup disk system preference pane.
 

matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
oooh that 10.4 disk utility would probably be different, thats a good idea. it says i have 13 mins left on the install so I might let it go and then try the 10.4 disk.

ill be sure to report back on if it was a success of not, thanks
 

matthews1492

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2005
49
0
ah using the 10.4 disk did the trick! there is a lot more disk utility / startup disk options on it. lesson learned is don't assume to use the origional 10.2 installation disk when you have tiger installed. thanks again for all your help : disaster averted.
 
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