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jammybob · Jan 15, 2006, 02:21 PM

I've just bought a G3 B&W 350 rev.2 and put a OS X 10.4 CD in to boot it, hard drive was wiped when I got it. However, it chimes fine, there is some disk access, but then grey screen appears with the flashing question mark. I've tried every keyboard shortcut I find, but to no avail, it won't boot from the CD. I've changed the DVD-ROM that was in back to the original CD-ROM, but exactly the same. Also ruled out the RAM, changed the sticks round a few times.

My suspicions lead to the keyboard, I'm running through a KVM, using a PS2-USB adapter at the Mac end, when the grey screen is on, the lock key lights are all on and won't turn off.

When I plugged in a Logitech wireless USB keyboard directly, it did the opposite, the lights wouldn't turn on.

Any suggestions? I thought Macs just worked straight away...

JoshKurtz · Jan 15, 2006, 04:36 PM

I have a KVM hooked up to my pc and a (believe it or not) 350MHz G3 B&W rev.1. I have to have the mac keyboard plugged into the mac in order for it to boot from a cd. The PS2-USB converters are iffy sometimes.
And Macs do just work when you use the hardware that Apple supports or makes.

jammybob · Jan 15, 2006, 04:40 PM

So you plug a genuine Mac keyboard straight into it? I've tried my PS2 through just the adapter, not KVM too, and it had no effect. Although I can do the sequence to reset the PRAM.

JoshKurtz · Jan 16, 2006, 07:58 AM

That's the only way I can get mine to boot from cd. It came with a windows usb keyboard that wouldn't boot with the c key. I left my mac keyboard at my parents' house the other day and needed to boot from cd so I tried the PS2-usb adapter with another keyboard but no dice.
I don't think the keyboard has to be made by Apple though. It just needs the mac-specific keys on it like command and option. Aftermarket companies make these.

discotronic · Jan 16, 2006, 11:19 AM

If there is no OS on the machine right now, it should boot up from the CD/DVD automatically. The CD-ROM probably won't work unless you actually have Tiger on CD which makes up about 4 disks. If the install CD/DVD that you have isn't a full retail copy or is an upgrade disk you won't be able to install it. If you are using a disk that shipped with a Mac you probably won't be able to use it since most disks are machine specific.