B&W G3. No boot from old OS disk or YDL on hard drive, boots from YDL CD

[Eric Dunbar]

Matthew...

Just to confirm:
1. The B&W G3 *won't* boot from an OS 9 installer CD?
2. The B&W G3 WILL boot from a YDL install CD you made?
3. Is the HD an IDE or SCSI drive?

Comments:
1. Since you have another computer around, have you tried swapping CD-ROMs?
2. It's possible to type in an OF command to boot the default device
(can't remember what it is since I haven touched OF in aeons). If you
can get to yaboot it sounds like your computer will work just fine.
3. Make sure that the termination is correct on the HD and the CD-ROM
(I'm no termination guru though!... there's master, slave and a third
setting (that I can't remember off the top of my head))
4. If the "operational" OS 8 on that 2nd HD was < 8.5 your B&W won't
boot anyway. I'm wondering if there's a strange quirk with the B&W's
HD or IDE controller?
5. How big/new is the HD that's in the B&W? Was it original? How big
is the HD that you're trying to put in?
6. Take the HD from the B&W & try it in the Beige. If you can get it
going in the Beige you know there's something up with the B&W. If you
can't get it going in the Beige you know it's the drive!

And, if you get it going in the Beige, install OS 9 (don't fiddle with
YDL yet -- you're adding to the complexity of your trouble shooting)
and then see if you can get the B&W to boot with it.

... but why would the YDL CD boot while the OS 9 one doesn't (that's
just downright strange)?

You are holding down the C key when you restart the B&W with the OS 9
CD in the drive?

How are you getting the YDL install CD to boot on the B&W?

Eric.

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:24:02 -0500, matthew dechant
<mdechant at insightpd.com> wrote:
> Good morning everyone,
> 
> With the risk of starting to be annoying, I'll ask this question one more
> time on the general mailing list. If no one has any suggestions that's fine,
> I'm just trying to figure out if I should give up on this machine or not.
> 
> Blue and White G3.
> Boots off the YDL disks I made, find the hard drive, and appears to install
> YDL, no problem.
> Won't boot to YDL upon restart. Only boots to open firmware prompt or
> question mark if left alone.
> Tried an ATA IDE, SCSI, and regular IDE drive, no go.
> 
> It won't boot off a purchased OS 9 CD, nor will it boot off a beige G3
> install disk. Also tried a hard drive with operational OS 8.something I
> pulled from a beige G3. All I get is the question mark.
> 
> Reset Pram more times than I want to count and pulled the battery overnight.
> I put a new battery in it.
> I also put new Ram in it.
> 
> I thought maybe (after some reading) that I needed to upgrade to firmware on
> the machine, so that's when I tried to install a version of OS, because it
> appears that you can't do it from a CD?? Is this most likely the problem,
> firmware?
> 
> Is there something wrong with the machine maybe?

<snip>