Developer Forum

Sorry if this sounds a bit basic but I have got a 350 Yikes G4 which doesn't
work. I also have a flat beige G3 266 which I understand has a similar
logic board. The G4 had a 10 gig drive with OSX on it. When the G4 logic
board died I tried putting the drive into the G3. It starts the white screen
and rotates the circular thing under it as if it is trying to start the
operating system. But it just keeps rotating endlessly.

I am presuming the chipsets are the same but suppose the problem may be that
the OS was installed for a unit with other parameters?

So I put the OSX drive as a secondary drive and can read it when I start the
G3 from OS 8.6.

Is there anything I can do to repair the OSX installation on that drive so
that it works with the G3? Any files I can replace? Any special procedures
or commands I can enter from Command Option O F? I am trying to repair as
opposed to losing all the data on the G4's drive which is partitioned into
two partitions (called Atlas and Einstein??): One of which has the OS on it
and apps and the other has only Netscape on it so I dont THINK this problem
arises as a result of needing to start the G3 from a drive smaller than 10
gig.

I am trying to do this in part also because the CDROM on the G3 stopped
working and the system stopped seeing it. So I can't just reinstall OS X
even if I could reconcile myself to losing all the data and software. I am
somewhat hoping that the DR ROM will mysteriously reappear in OS X. At
present I replaced it with a SCSI one and it shows in profiler as what it is
and (whether there is a CD in it or not) as being 'unmounted'. (dunno what
that means? It is a Smart and Friendly CD-R 8020 and I didnt know that CD
ROMs needed mounting?)

MFS
BTW Is there a better or more appropriate forum for this question?

In article <chn5ur$npo$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM >,



Unlikely. I see two possible issues.

1) It's possible you're using a version of OS X that simply doesn't
support the beige G3 (10.3.x).

2) It's certain that the beige G3s are in the subset of machines for
which OS X must exist within the first 8GB of the drive to be reliable.
Your installation may have files outside that area.


comp.sys.mac.system springs to mind as a likely choice.

G

--
Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom,
they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his
"standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon

> I am trying to do this in part also because the CDROM on the G3 stopped

Grab a drive from your local recycle center.

On 2004-09-08 10:44, in article chn5ur$npo$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ,



Go get XPostFacto from Other World Computing (OWC). It specifically
assists in getting Panther installed on G3 macs not officially supported by
Apple. I have personally used it to install Panther on a Beige G3 desktop
that I later upgraded to a G4 processor.

There are a lot of resources on this accessible via Google. Good luck!

--jon

hanks for the message guys but I may have misstated my problem: It isnt
that I am trying to get Panther to work on a G3 266 (or that I cant get OS X
installed, - so I should try another drive), it is that I cant get whatever
flavour of OS X which IS on the hard drive to boot.

All I want to do is get what is on the drive to boot (not install it on
another drive unless there is some way of copying what is on the 10 gig
drive to the 4 gig 8.6 one and dual-boot?), or partition what is on the
drive so that if there is a problem with the 10 gig drive being not
partitioned, I can rectify this problem.

Is there no partition utility for the Mac so that I can get this G3 to boot
preferably without spending more than the whole computer is worth for this
software to use once? (or is that what ExPostFacto is for?)


"Jon Boone" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in message
news:BD665539.30B0D% XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...
doesn't
screen
that
the
so
procedures
as
into
it
problem
10
am
it is
what
CD
by

n 2004-09-11 22:37, in article ci0cri$5fn$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ,
"Licensed to Quill" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote:


XPostFacto can be used as a boot-loader for booting systems into OS X. I
think it'll do what you need to have done. It will detect that you have a
partition with OS X installed and give you the option to boot from it.

However, be sure and turn on verbose mode so that you can see it booting
up in case you get a kernel panic or something during boot, which can happen
if the old disk you're trying to boot from doesn't have the right kernel
modules to support the hardware on the new machine.

--jon

any thanks JOn I will try that: I am only ASSUMING that the yikes machine
has all the same chipsets as the G3 as it was a G3. But whether a very late
G3 circuit board adapted for a G4 has all the same features as a very early
G3 may well be a different question.

Should I take the 8.6 drive out and put a less-than-8-gig PC drive in it
and have ex post facto format it in case the problem IS with the OS not
being able to boot on a machine which has a 10 gig drive installed? Can I
use exPostFacto (if need be) to copy all the data from the 10 gig drive to
an unformatted 6 gig drive?


"Jon Boone" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in message
news:BD6A8629.30DA5% XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...
OS X
whatever
boot
this
similar
logic
the
be
start
drive
repair
on
than
stopped
X
I
that
supported
desktop
luck!
happen

On 2004-09-13 09:03, in article ci45t5$s2m$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ,



Caveat: my experience with this has been entirely centered around getting
my personal Beige PowerMac G3/G4 to work, so I don't know a lot about older
systems than that. However, there are excellent support forums on the OWC
web site for discussions about all the variations that XPF supports - the
cost is the $25 it takes to become a registered user of XPF. Note that you
can use XPF for free for as long as you want -- you just can't access the
support forums with out registering.

That being said, my biggest concern would be whether or not your video
card driver is supported. But, if you can spare the $25, I'd use the XPF
forums.



My Beige G4 has a 20Gigabyte drive on it, which it boots just fine. My
understanding is that if your OS X drive is not partitioned so that the boot
code is located within the 8Gbyte limit, then you can have problems. Note
that for me, it is no problem to boot into OS 9.2.2 even though my 9.2.2
partition is above the 8 Gbyte limit, as the boot process goes to the built
in ROM first -- which appears to be capable of accessing the entire hard
drive.

However, to boot into OS X (indeed, to *install it*) I need to have
everything under the 8 Gbyte limit.

XPF does support the notion of a "helper" disk -- a disk that you can have
that is within the acceptable limitations and gets enough code stashed to
allow OS X to boot off of your "real" disk. The code that gets put there is
XPF specific boot code, so you don't need (AFAIK) OS install CDs even. This
code includes support for the older video cards.

XPF will not format your drive -- you need to use disk utility (under OS
X) or drive setup (under OS 9) to do that. Nor will XPF copy your data for
you. However, if your machine is capable of handling two drives -- and you
have the install CDs for Jaguar or Panther -- you *could* install OS X onto
the 6 Gbyte drive (which would be the primary on your IDE chain, if that's
what you use) and then just access the data on the 8.6 Gbyte drive.

--jon

hanks Jon I will give it a try: Now all I have to do is to download the
program and figure out what software to use to WRITE to the SCSI CD R drive
which I put in when I couldn't get the OS to recognise the CD in my beige
G3. (not only do I think I will have problems using software to write to
the drive, profiler shows that drive as an unmounted volume whatever that
means??)


"Jon Boone" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in message
news:BD6B17F3.30DE3% XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...
machine
late
early
getting
older
you
it
I
to
boot
built
have
is
This
for
you
onto

Jon

Do you know how I can download this helper disc anywhere and burn it onto
(for example) a 100 meg zip disc which my G3 has? My problem seems to be
that I have 8.6 installed and having just acquired Panther install discs,
find that XPF won't work to upgrade 8.6 to any flavour of OS X. So I am
wondering if I can start off such a helper disc and then install the
full-version Panther off the CD? Either onto the 4 gig drive where the 8.6
is or a 10 gig disc or even a 6 gig disc which I can take out of a PC if the
install process is simply going to format it first?

L2Q

have
is
This
for
you
onto

On 2004-09-28 14:53, in article cjcc32$9pt$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ,



If XPF doesn't run under 8.6, then you're practically out of luck. You'd
need to upgrade to 9.2.x to run XPF to install the Helper Disk files.

Do you have access to a machine with 9.2.x that can make a boot floppy for
you? Or even a bootable CD-ROM with 9.2.x system and XPF on it?

--jon

onto
be
discs,
8.6
the
You'd
for

Unfortunately not: Curiously, I do however have a PREVIOUS SYSTEM folder
which has OS 9 in it and which seems to be about the same size as the SYSTEM
folder (I tried dragging both to the 100 meg empty ZIP disk and was told
that each was short of space by either 120 or 124 megabytes.. Someone seems
to have installed 9 in March 2003 and then restored 8 immediately thereafter
while leaving the 9 folder on the hard drive!

I am told I can reactivate it and boot into it by merely dragging the FINDER
out of my OS8 and dragging the same file out of the 9 previous folder and
then dragging it back in again to 'bless' the folder and seeing if the
PREVIOUS system folder icon changes, which it does. I am now left wondering
if I can just restart the system OR if I need to rename the PREVIOUS SYSTEM
folder to SYSTEM (and if so, how) on pain of never getting my computer to
work again when I try to re-boot. (or can a system boot from a folder called
Previous system if there is a Finder icon on/in it?)

Any idea if I can made a backup of a system boot device by dragging files or
folders to the Zip disc in case anything goes wrong or in case there really
IS something wrong with this OS 9 installation?

On 2004-10-02 11:33, in article cjmhrd$5dc$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ,



I'm not an expert on Mac OS (pre-X), but I believe that you can just copy
the existing System folder onto a removable (and bootable) medium. That's
what I did when upgrading my hard-drive (I had both installed at the same
time and just dragged the contents of the boot drive onto the new drive,
removed the boot drive, re-arranged the IDE cabling and rebooted... )

I don't know about whether or not you need to rename the system folder,
but I'd rename the 8.6 one as SYSTEM 8.6 and rename OLD SYSTEM to SYSTEM,
then reboot. But, I'm impetuous that way. :-)

Once you're booted under 9.2, make sure to get the 9.2.2 updates from the
Apple web site so that you've got the latest version of 9.2

--jon

That is pretty much what I did and everything worked (I can probably even
delete the 8.6 folder in its entirety) except that the CD drive now shows
an unknown Apple error message: 'No mounted media inserted'. Whoda thunk
that you had to MOUNT a CD before a reader could read it? Now I cant
install OS X of any flavour until I can figure out how to mount a CD so that
it can be read. I tried changing drives to the original one AND putting a
SCSI one in but that didnt help, still got the same error message with CDs
inserted in whatever drive I try to use





files or
really
copy
the