help iMac g3 with mac os 8 no longer boots properly

[bill-gates]

today I accidently turned off my iMac by mistake (pressed off button twice while in sleep mode). And when I try to boot it when it comes to the little mac logo it says "this boot up disk does not work with this mac please restart I press restart and it says the same thing, also when it turned off with an os 9 in it and when I booted it I definatly did not press down c . Ithink it maybe the hd or is it possible to change boot priority?

 

[California]

Time to upgrade. is there any good reason you are lounging around in OS 8?

New Hard drive. Get at least Panther on it.

 

[RoboCop001]

today I accidently turned off my iMac by mistake (pressed off button twice while in sleep mode). And when I try to boot it when it comes to the little mac logo it says "this boot up disk does not work with this mac please restart I press restart and it says the same thing, also when it turned off with an os 9 in it and when I booted it I definatly did not press down c . Ithink it maybe the hd or is it possible to change boot priority?

It booted up with the OS 9 even without holding C down because it looks for all available boot drives. Since it can't boot from the HD for whatever reason, it looks next to the CDROM drive. Since it finds a valid boot disc, it starts up from there.

Now about your HD.... maybe there's just corrupted files on it. I remember one time I forced-restart an old Mac and when it starts to boot up I got the "folder with question mark" icon and it wouldn't boot. I forced it to restart while it was accessing files (in this case, opening a JPEG). Forcing the restart in the middle of an operation must have screwed up some system files, so maybe something similar happened with you.

So if you can, try reinstalling the OS with either 8 or 9. If it still doesn't work, then I guess the HD is kind of screwed somehow.

If you're going to upgrade to OS X, I suggest not going further than Panther (10.3). I have an old iMac G3 350MHz with 320MB of RAM, and 10.3 is comfortably usable. It slows down when animating Expose, and it's not that fast most of the time, but it's quite usable. More RAM helps of course. I think the maximum you can put in is 1GB, maybe a little less. But I definitely wouldn't put 10.4 or higher on it.

 

[California]

So if you can, try reinstalling the OS with either 8 or 9. If it still doesn't work, then I guess the HD is kind of screwed somehow.

If you're going to upgrade to OS X, I suggest not going further than Panther (10.3). I have an old iMac G3 350MHz with 320MB of RAM, and 10.3 is comfortably usable. It slows down when animating Expose, and it's not that fast most of the time, but it's quite usable. More RAM helps of course. I think the maximum you can put in is 1GB, maybe a little less. But I definitely wouldn't put 10.4 or higher on it.

If he's running OS 8, that means he probably has the first round of the iMacs.. a 233mhz/266mhz or a 333mhz. Probably a 233; these came with OS 8.

These take laptop ram! and are slightly larger than the latter model iMac g3's and have the tray loading cd player only.

If this computer is all he's got, I'd upgrade the hd and some ram; drop Panther on it. Did this to a friends' 233 and she's still running fine with 80gb hd/384ram and Panther. He can always take the hd out and sell the ram if he wants to junk the machine.

 

[bill-gates]

Time to upgrade. is there any good reason you are lounging around in OS 8?

New Hard drive. Get at least Panther on it.

? it is not my only mac i have a 1ghz emac running 10.4.11, why cant you read my other posts!

 

[ickystay]

How about starting it from an install CD and try Disk Utilities on the hard drive? When (and if) it fixes the hard drive, use the Startup Disk control panel to choose the OS you want it to start on and restart.

 

[bill-gates]

update!

? it is not my only mac i have a 1ghz emac running 10.4.11, why cant you read my other posts!

i just put in a new 40 gb hardrive in my imac g3 . but when i boot from the os 9 disk (by pressing "c") it just goes on a blank grey screen nothing else.
is there somthing missing? or have i done somthing incorrect?

 

[California]

? it is not my only mac i have a 1ghz emac running 10.4.11, why cant you read my other posts!

?

 

[justperry]

today I accidently turned off my iMac by mistake (pressed off button twice while in sleep mode). And when I try to boot it when it comes to the little mac logo it says "this boot up disk does not work with this mac please restart I press restart and it says the same thing, also when it turned off with an os 9 in it and when I booted it I definatly did not press down c . Ithink it maybe the hd or is it possible to change boot priority?

I read You also have a second Mac,then try this.
Connect both computers with a firewire Cable and startup in disk targetmode,I
am not sure but I think You should push the T button on Your 3G machine.
Then you should be able to see your disk on your other disk.
If this is so,then You go to the next step and try to repair your G3 with disk utility,also diskwarrior is a good program to try.
Hope you understand what I suggested,you could find probably more on the apple site on target disk mode.
But I am pretty sure thats the way to do it.
Succes cheers Perry

Update,just found this on the Apple site; http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

 

[bill-gates]

I read You also have a second Mac,then try this.
Connect both computers with a firewire Cable and startup in disk targetmode,I
am not sure but I think You should push the T button on Your 3G machine.
Then you should be able to see your disk on your other disk.
If this is so,then You go to the next step and try to repair your G3 with disk utility,also diskwarrior is a good program to try.
Hope you understand what I suggested,you could find probably more on the apple site on target disk mode.
But I am pretty sure thats the way to do it.
Succes cheers Perry

Update,just found this on the Apple site; http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

sadley its the origional pre-firewire version

 

[RoboCop001]

i just put in a new 40 gb hardrive in my imac g3 . but when i boot from the os 9 disk (by pressing "c") it just goes on a blank grey screen nothing else.
is there somthing missing? or have i done somthing incorrect?

That's weird.... it should boot.

You just have the OS 9 CD right? Not the OS 8? If you have the 8, try that one.
Try not pressing C too. If there's no OS on the internal HD, it should automatically use the CD.

If you have a Panther (10.3) or earlier disc, try that one too. Again, I suggest not going further than 10.3 if you're going to put OS X on the iMac.

Otherwise.... if you are able to, try taking the HD out and putting it in another computer (you said you have an eMac right?), or buy an external HD box and put it in there (make sure it's the right kind of HD box, I think it the HD that the iMac uses needs an IDE connector) and connect it to your eMac, and try installing OS 9 onto that HD using the eMac.

Then put it into your iMac. If it doesn't work... then there's some kind of hardwear problem.

 

[bill-gates]

That's weird.... it should boot.

You just have the OS 9 CD right? Not the OS 8? If you have the 8, try that one.
Try not pressing C too. If there's no OS on the internal HD, it should automatically use the CD.

If you have a Panther (10.3) or earlier disc, try that one too. Again, I suggest not going further than 10.3 if you're going to put OS X on the iMac.

Otherwise.... if you are able to, try taking the HD out and putting it in another computer (you said you have an eMac right?), or buy an external HD box and put it in there (make sure it's the right kind of HD box, I think it the HD that the iMac uses needs an IDE connector) and connect it to your eMac, and try installing OS 9 onto that HD using the eMac.

Then put it into your iMac. If it doesn't work... then there's some kind of hardwear problem.

well the thing is it has the firmware it shipped with, but will 9.0 work cos my other is a 9.2 disk

 

[bill-gates]

The Angel Has Spoken!

well the thing is it has the firmware it shipped with, but will 9.0 work cos my other is a 9.2 disk

it boots from the os 9.0 disk now
but when i try to install the firmware update it says the volume is locked
what does this mean?

 

[Consultant]

it boots from the os 9.0 disk now
but when i try to install the firmware update it says the volume is locked
what does this mean?

Sounds like you are booted from the CD. It's trying to write to the CD which cannot be written to.

You need to install the OS onto your HD first.

In the future, to select a boot disk on the mac, after power on, hold the OPTION key, no need to set boot priority (but you should set your main one using "Startup Disk").

 

[bill-gates]

I Fixed It!!!!!!!!!!!!!

right ok, i downloaded a mac os 8 dmg from thepiratebay.com and expanded it and then i put it on my external HD then installed it, then i installed the updates off the mac os 9.0 disk, then installed mac os 9 fine

thanks for all the help!

 

[Consultant]

right ok, i downloaded a mac os 8 dmg from TPB and expanded it and then i put it on my external HD then installed it, then i installed the updates off the mac os 9.0 disk, then installed mac os 9 fine

thanks for all the help!

Since you have OS 9 working, you should upgrade the firmware in OS9, and install 10.2 or 10.3 on that iMac. (unless it has very low ram such as 64mb or 128mb)

 

[Consultant]

Firmware updates OS9
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117