Yeah, hence why I suggested it at the beginning. Still, it didn't hurt checking all the other possibilities.
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Mac Cube won't boot
- Thread starter ajedrez
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No, how do I do an "Open Firmware reset"?
I agree that it seems odd that the CPU would fail. It's only a little over a year old. The fan seems to still be working fine.
I've tried disconnecting all of the firewire and USB conntections (except for the keyboard).
Start the Mac up holding down Command + Option + O + F, until a blue screen appears.
At the command prompt type:
reset-nvram [return]
reset-all [return]
The Mac will then (with luck) reboot.
If this doesn't work, you're probably in for a tear-down. It's not fun, I know.
I tried connecting the Cube to another Mac (a System 9 Mac) with Firewire, but it couldn't see the Cube from the Mac. Interesting though...it can see the external firewire drive that is connected to the Cube.
Do I need to first start up with the "T" key held down?
Do I need to first start up with the "T" key held down?
It should actually take a few minutes and find the targeted Mac's hard drive for start up after you turn it on.
This is interesting as I have the same problem on a Cube that previously worked fine. No CPU upgrade, however. Try booting off the targeted Mac's hard drive. I'll bet it is your hard drive.
Also there are some weird settings for the slave master on the Cubes optical drive and hard drive because they are on the same ribbon. I somehow thought this was the issue with the Cube I own because I recently swapped out the dead dvd drive for a working cd rom drive, but haven't played around with it sufficiently to figure it out.
This is interesting as I have the same problem on a Cube that previously worked fine. No CPU upgrade, however. Try booting off the targeted Mac's hard drive. I'll bet it is your hard drive.
Also there are some weird settings for the slave master on the Cubes optical drive and hard drive because they are on the same ribbon. I somehow thought this was the issue with the Cube I own because I recently swapped out the dead dvd drive for a working cd rom drive, but haven't played around with it sufficiently to figure it out.
It doesn't seem to ever find the hard drive for the Cube (just the external drive connected to it). Is that because the other machine is System 9?
If the hard drive is the problem, why won't it boot up from a System CD? It tries for a while and then just gives the circle with the line through it.
If I do that, won't it clear out the firmware upgrade that I needed for the CPU upgrade? The CPU upgrade required a firmware upgrade. Of course, I could probably load that again I guess. Is that what you are suggesting?
I think you are right...if these resets don't work, it must be a hardware problem (probably memory or CPU), and I'll have to take the thing apart.
The hard drive and the optical drive are on the same cable. Those old Cube optical drives are notoriously crappy.
I bet it is the hard drive. I'm not smart enough to understand the slave/master settings and how they affect the hd and optical drive but google it and maybe take the hard drive out of your Mac os9 machine to put in the Cube to experiment.
I could be wrong, but I don't think it will have any effect on the firmware.
I'm a real doubter that the hard drive could be the cause of your problems, but it's easy enough to find out. Pull out the core and disconnect the drive power. Then try to start up on a CD or DVD.
I'm not sure if I understood your results from Target Disk Mode. If you restart with the T-key held down, you should see a blue screen with a Firewire logo bouncing around as a screen saver. If you don't, then you're not getting into Target Disk Mode.
Oh boy...the Target Disk Mode doesn't even work. It tries to start up, but then it just shuts off after a while.
One more try...resetting the firmware...hopefully
Well, it never got to the command prompt. It first tried to boot off of the hard drive, coming up with the folder with the question mark, and then it tried to boot off of the CD, and came up eventually with the circle and the line through it.
I think it's time to take the thing apart and hope.
Just for giggles, I'd try unplugging the power to the hard drive before I tried anything more drastic.
You'll need a 3.5" ATA drive (parallel, not serial). Go for about the smallest size you can find. IIRC, the Cube can't recognize partitions over 160 GB.
Happy to hear you found your problem.
O.k. I bought a 160 GB hard drive (ATA). I assume that should work. Thatnks to all for the help. I learned quite a bit for the future. I hope everyone else did too.
Another question...I remember that there is a way to use the firewire connections between two machines to format the drive (that's how I did it the first time). I have another Cube. Do I just connect them together, or is there some command that I need to run?
Target Disk Mode? You could do that, or just use the system install discs, which you'll presumably need anyway.
Actually, what I mean is not just to format the drive, but to copy all of the applications and everything over too. Otherwise, I have to spend hours searching for CDs and installing all of the applications one by one.
Yes, it is target disk mode I think (how do I get to that?). Of course I have the original install disks, but I don't want to do every application over again if I don't have to. I remember that it only took a few minutes to do last time (instead of the long time it would take to install each app one by one).
I don't know how orthodox it is, but I just go to utilities with one disk in target mode or fw connect, and go to "restore" where I copy the hd I want onto the new one. But if your hd is dead, this won't work.
I think you just helped me fix my own cube, I thought it was a hd problem and you proved me right.
Excellent. I'm glad that my problems were able to help someone else.
Actually, your suggestion will work. But I'm going to copy from my other cube to the broken one. I'm replacing the disk on the broken one, so it should work I think (if the "restore" command is the one I'm supposed to use to copy all of the files from the other Cube onto my new replacement drive).
Excellent. I'm glad that my problems were able to help someone else.
Actually, your suggestion will work. But I'm going to copy from my other cube to the broken one. I'm replacing the disk on the broken one, so it should work I think (if the "restore" command is the one I'm supposed to use to copy all of the files from the other Cube onto my new replacement drive).
Yes, this has worked for me previously, machine to machine in target mode. Love those cubes, have a great Cube Thanksgiving!