SOS-unable to startup!!

[nbusse]

More details in my 'partitioning startup disk' posting, but suffice to say I am screwed right now....

A re-install OS operation gone horribly wrong, it crashed & now I can't boot up, it refuses the install disks (I tried power + C key with both 10.3.3 & 10.4.6 -- don't think I have any earlier versions than that) Simply spits them out...

Anything in firmware to help me out?
(don't know anything about firmware except that it exists)

do i need any additional disks besides the installs?

I have an external firewire drive w/ OS9, which will boot up but it doesn't even SEE the main iMac at all.......
HELP.

 

[lamina]

Hold down -Option O - F when booting (Before the grey screen)
Type reset-all

See if you can boot to the install disks after that.

 

[nbusse]

thank you for the advice!!
In firmware, I was able to force eject to stick the install disk in, then typed 'reset-all'. It did allow me to restart from the disk! yay!

Not finished w/ the re-install yet (I decided to stick with the reliable 10.3.3 version) --I'll let you know if it's successful!

 

[nbusse]

not successful

tried twice so far, failure.
Booting from the instal disk (10.3.3) it starts up normally for an install - checks the main drive then quits - tells me there was an error in installing software. Makes you restart computer, at which point it restarts, spits out the disk & there's the grey screen w/ a little globe icon on it (what's that mean?)
Then I can force it to restart from the install disk again, but the pattern repeats itself.

grrrr...how much time this wastes......

 

[lamina]

Are you able to access Disk Utility from the Utilities menu in the installer? You might be able to verify/repair your hard drive from there... just a thought

 

[nbusse]

Great news, I'm actually typing this on the formerly-dead computer!
I did go to disk utility, did a verify & repair on the drive (altho it said it was fine, which I didn't believe) - also did a total erase of the drive before doing the install of OS 10.3.3.
My next quandry is whether to go on to the 10.4.6 upgrade... I might just quit while I'm ahead...
You don't happen to know anything about M-audio, do you? It was the incompatibility of 10.4 with a firewire product that started this whole mess.

Anyways, thanks for the advice so far!