Boot Help!

[ldefoe]

i made a mistake by copying an OS 9 system folder to the hard drive and setting that as the boot disk. now whenever i try to boot i just get an error from OS 9 and i don't know how to get back into OS X since i can't boot any OS. please help! how do i get OS X back to boot??

 

[eyoungren]

i made a mistake by copying an OS 9 system folder to the hard drive and setting that as the boot disk. now whenever i try to boot i just get an error from OS 9 and i don't know how to get back into OS X since i can't boot any OS. please help! how do i get OS X back to boot??

Option one: Hold down the 'X' key immediately after chime. You will boot back in to OS X if it works.

Option two: Hold down the OPTN key immediately after chime. You will be presented with the boot drives the Mac recognized. Choose the OS X drive and click the arrow to boot from it.

 

[Slix]

Alternatively, if the OS 9 and X drives are one in the same, and it fails to boot to OS X that way, you could use another Mac with Target Disc Mode to switch the boot drive to OS X on the messed up OS 9 Mac, or use a bootable Mac OS X installation CD to get to the Startup Disc preferences.

I had that issue once, and I believe I did it with TDM eventually because the X and Option key tricks weren't working. Good luck!

 

[rabidz7]

If the OS X has been corrupted by any chance, you can boot the computer into Target Disk Mode by holding the "T" key on the keyboard as the system boots. In Target Disk Mode, you can connect the corrupt computer to another computer with a FireWire cord and recover files. The internal storage of the computer in Target Disk mode will appear as an external hard drive to the functioning computer; you could then clone the corrupt drive with a cloning utility or just copy essential files via Finder. It may also be possible to diagnose and repair the corruption of the system.

 

[Cox Orange]

Has the problem been solved? Otherwise I could think of the 8GB issue. if it is a tray loader iMac G3 (and I think B&W G3 and before).

 

[Andy2k]

I've done this too If you have a bootable USB Mac OS installer you can use it to change the "boot" drive/partition. Hold the option key down and boot from USB. In the upper menu there is a start up/boot option. (I'm at work and don't have my Mac so I can't tell you the exact name of the menu feature). Any bootable USB or cd/DVD leopard or earlier.