eMac: Still waiting for root device

[NintendoRev]

I recently acquired a 1.25ghz eMac and can't seem to get OSX to install whatsoever. Every time I try booting both Panther and Tiger install disks on the system, I get to the gray apple boot screen then it turns to the Prohibited sign.

I did a verbose boot on tiger and it just sits there saying "Still waiting for root device".

I was suspecting that the optical drive is bad but not entirely sure and don't really feel like taking apart the entire machine if i don't have to. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ctmpkmlec4]

That's a strange issue. The first thing that comes to mind is damaged install media. If that's not the issue, then according to discussion on Apple's site, the issue could be a failed hard drive. IMO, I find it hard to believe that a failed hard drive would keep someone from booting the OS X install disc. Have you tried resetting the PRAM (CMD-Option-P-R)? Or, boot the eMac into Open Firmware (CMD-Option-O-F) and type "reset-nvram" (without quotes), press Return, then type "reset-all" (again, without quotes), and press Return. The Mac will reboot itself. Once you've reset the PRAM, try booting from the OS X install disc again.

I did a search using the keywords "still waiting for root device," and all of the information I could find pertained to Hackintosh builds. If you were trying to boot only Tiger, I would ask if you were using Intel-only install media. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Tiger was never released as a universal binary. However, since you also tried to boot Panther, I doubt neither install disc is bad.

Link to resetting PRAM: http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS1812

Apple Discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2238152?start=0&tstart=0

 

[NintendoRev]

Thanks for the response! However i figured it out, the optical drive failed miserably :/

On the plus side, with some open firmware trickery I got it to boot from USB! So it's all working now! =D

 

[ctmpkmlec4]

Try using a cleaning disc to clean the laser lens. You would be surprised at the issues caused by a dirty lens.

 

[NintendoRev]

I would try that but OSX doesn't even see the drive D= I think it's safe to say it's completely dead.