[Angus_D]

I was trying to boot the Debian Linux install floppy by using the Boot Variables app... I unchecked the auto-boot checkbox thinking it would dump me into OF where I could do some fiddling, but instead when I boot up I get a chime and a black screen and nothing else loads. No OS. No nothing.

I have tried resetting the NVRAM (by pressing the CUDA RESET switch and by taking out the battery), but all to no avail.

Someone said that this could've screwed up the board for good, but I would've thought Apple was clever enough to put in some way of working around it....

Any help would be appreciated.

I have the exact same problem with a 7200. I got it from a friend who had had problems with it. I get the chime, but thats it, no video, no hard drive activity, nothing. It won't boot from a floppy either.

I searched through Apple's TIL, but nothing worked. I replaced the battery. Left the battery out for 30 minutes, tried the CUDA button, zapped the PRAM. Nothing works...

Sorry I don't have any helpful suggestions.

You can probably fix this if you have access to another Mac (or a PC with the correct cable). Connect the printer port (possibly the modem port... can't remember off hand) on the 7200 to your other mac. On the other Mac, open a terminal emulator (like Zterm), set the port speed to 38400, 8-N-1. Boot the 7200 and with luck, you'll get an Open Firmware prompt where you'll be able to issue commands to reset things. This works because OF on 7X00 machines comes preset to use a serial port for I/O, not the keyboard and monitor... mostly because OF does not have a driver for the Power Mac 7200's builtin video. You'll need to reset the Open Firmware Boot-Device variable to something like /AAPL,ROM. Hope this helps.

Eric