I have several older Macs (7100/80, Radius 80/110) that have OS9.1 installed but I want to wipe them clean before eBaying them. I have factory OS8 and OS9 cd's and have tried to boot up onto the cd's on several systems with no success. I hold down the "C" key while powering on and it boots right to the installed OS. I have used every imaginable configuration with different systems, keyboards, and cd's. My original plan was to boot up to the cd, use the disk utility and erase the hard drives but that doesn't seem possible. Any ideas?
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Older Macs won't boot off of CD's
- Thread starter Rabidjade
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Usually if the OS on the CDs is older than the one on the HD, there's a chance it won't boot off the CD.
Something about the PRAM looking for OS 9.1 instead of 9.0 -- don't remember if zapping the PRAM then booting from the drive got around it.
I think it was the PRAM, been awhile.
Something about the PRAM looking for OS 9.1 instead of 9.0 -- don't remember if zapping the PRAM then booting from the drive got around it.
I think it was the PRAM, been awhile.
Rabidjade said:
Hold command+option+P+R at startup. The computer will start to boot then you'll hear the startup chime and it will reboot. Let the startup cycle happen three times and then let it boot all the way up. You'll notice things like your text highlight color is now default, etc.
It could be Sun Baked is looking to have you zap the PRAM, as above, then hold the C key directly after that to boot from the CD. If the computer boots all the way up from the hard drive it will realize what system version is installed and that puts you back where you started.
Rabidjade said:
Forgot to answer this question. Any medium to large caliber firearm will very much rid the drive of data. This method does hurt the resale value of the drive, however.
It seems like that disk erasing would be on some of the utilities from those days, like Norton Utilities. If you use that or the disk utility on the OS 9 CD, be sure and do a long initialization. It write zeros across the drive. A fast clear only erases the disk directory. The data is still there and programs exist to scan the hard drive and recover any data whether you see it in the Finder or not.
osprey76 said:
I was booting to the OS9 CD and using the disk utility to erase the hard drives but the problem is you can't boot on an older OS cd than whats installed and I need to erase what is installed. All I have for mac software is the original OS8 and OS9.0.1 cd's. The cd's are seen fine in the OS once booted but for reality, I can't format a drive when I am using the OS it.
You can boot an older OS than the one that's currently installed, but you can't boot one that's older than the version that came preinstalled.
A 7100/80 should be able to boot any OS between 7.6 and 9.1.
An 80/110 should run 7.5.3 through 8.1.
A 7100/80 should be able to boot any OS between 7.6 and 9.1.
An 80/110 should run 7.5.3 through 8.1.
Sorry I was thinking "old" machines ROM in ROM -- new world ROM machines look at the MacROM files.Nermal said:
The new world ROM in RAM machines look at the MacROM file on the HD while bootstrapping -- and you cannot get around it, if there is an OS the machine will look at the MacROM file and expect a OS version newer than the ROM file.
You can probably check to see if the machine will boot from the CD by unplugging the drive then booting from the CD.
There are other ways -- can't think of it, if zapping the PRAM doesn't work.
If unplugging the drive works, then when you boot from the HD again you can try to de-bless the HD by dragging the Finder & System onto the desktop.
Sometimes you may have to temporarily park the Mac OS ROM file in the trash can (don't empty) it until you fix the boot volume.
When the machine cannot see a Mac OS ROM it'll search all the drive locations, and probably boot from the CD.
Thanks for the help guys. I moved the "System" and "Finder" folders giving the computer nothing to boot to then it booted to my CD. I've been fighting this for days trying to format these rigs. Comming from a life of PC's, this file structure is totally different.
I've never had to "un-ROM" the hard drive. This is actually the first time I've heard of someone doing that, but the important thing is that it's working now
By the way, surely the 7100 is OldWorld and therefore ROM in ROM? I don't think the ROM was the problem, it just seemed to always want to boot from the HD for some reason.
Rabidjade, you mentioned that you opened the CD window and rebooted. Do you mean you double-clicked the CD on the desktop then rebooted? Or did you open Startup Disk and select the CD in there?
By the way, surely the 7100 is OldWorld and therefore ROM in ROM? I don't think the ROM was the problem, it just seemed to always want to boot from the HD for some reason.
Rabidjade, you mentioned that you opened the CD window and rebooted. Do you mean you double-clicked the CD on the desktop then rebooted? Or did you open Startup Disk and select the CD in there?