[jbmx4life]

Is it possible to put a slot-load cd-rom/combo drive into an older tray load model? I am beginning to think that my tray-load has seen its better days as it take forever to read a CD and sounds aweful in the process. I know that these are older drives and read at 24x.

I realized that the tray-load cd-rom has an adapter on the back of it. Would I just be able to purchase a different cd-rom/cd-rw/dvd-rom/dvd-rw or does it have to be something that is APPLE specific? Is it something in the firmware of the drive that makes the system recognize the drive itself?


TIA,
J

[red rocket]

I think it's tricky. Seem to recall seeing some ads for internal cd-r drives for the 333 in MacAddict about 5 years ago, not sure about combo or slot-load though.

You might want to have a look on xlr8yourmac, but from what I gather, the outlook's pretty dim. Shame really, I'd like to replace my drive, as well.

[jbmx4life]

Well I decided to experiment last night.I did try to use a standard PC optical cd-rom drive. I didn't have a molex Y-adapter but I made my own and then I used a 2-head IDE cable.I had everything out in the open (i.e. tray not installed into the back of iMac). I tried 2 different cd-roms and neither of them worked. All I got when I had them hooked up was a grey scree with a folder flashing a "?" and the Mac OS face.

J

[scottiB]

The iMac can't find a bootable system folder. Is the hard drive attached correctly?

[jbmx4life]

I managed to get the hard drive wiped using the disk utility on the OS X 10.3 disc that I got. Every attempt to get OS X 10.3 installed has failed. Now that the hard drive is wiped and the cd-rom fails to boot from the cd I am at a loss as what to do. I called a place locally that services Apple computers and talked to the tech. He seems to think that it is not the cd-rom drive itself. He wants me to bring in this machine that I bought for $10 and have them do a diagnosis for $47.50! LOL I could see it as being feesible if I had the money for them to do that along with getting a cpu upgrade, more memory, or anything else. I don't even know how well this thing will run yet. Oh boy...

[jbmx4life]

Well a good samaritan sent me a tray-load cd-rom for the cost of shipping. Everything is working properly until....

I can get OS X 10.3 fully loaded on the hard drive but then it reboots and won't load the OS. Instead it goes right for the OS cd. I tried taking the cd out and it sits with the folder flashing the ? and face. I tried using the cd to force it to boot from the hard drive and it does the same. I used the Disk Utility on the OS X cd to check out the hard drive and it says that everything is fine and that OS X 10.3 is loaded on to the hard drive. WTF IS THE PROB NOW?!?! Sheesh this thing is driving me nutz. I have tried twice to load the OS and got the same result both times.

Help me,
J

[JKT]

With that iMac, you need to install OS X onto an 8GB partition that is the first partition on the drive - have you done that? Also, did you check that the firmware for the iMac is up-to-date?

[Dave B]

Since the 333 Mhz iMac came with a 6 GB drive, you needn't worry about the 8 Gb partition.
Did you install firmware update 1.2 before installing OS X as suggested above?
Assuming you did, try booting up holding the option key until you get the screen which
gives the list of bootable drives. If you don't see this list, you won't be able to boot.
If for some reason you didn't update the firmware to 1.2, you will have to find an OS 9
Universal Install CD which contains the Firmware 1.2 update. Nore that the system-specific
CDs do not have the firmware, so don't waste your time trying––take it from someone who already did. ;-)
You can only install firmware 1.2 while booted from a Universal Install CD at this point.

Finally, if all of that fails, and you have firmware 1.2 installed, boot up from the Panther
CD erase the drive by writing zeros to the drive. This will map-out any bad sectors which
could possibly prevent the drive from booting.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Dave B

Since the 333 Mhz iMac came with a 6 GB drive, you needn't worry about the 8 Gb partition.

To clarify, you could have to worry about it if the hard drive has been upgraded to something larger than the one it originally shipped with (upgrading the HD is a lot easier to do on the tray loaders than it is in later versions of the iMac, so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that something other than the original HD is in there).

[jbmx4life]

The iMac has the original 6GB hard drive.
The firmware was updated the 1.2.
I have erased the hard drive using the "write zeros to the drive" in the disk utility of Panther.
I have gone through to the point in installation to "Erase and Install".
I used disk utility on Panther to verify the hard drive and it was all fine.
Disk Utility in Panther shows that OS X is installed on the hard drive.

Those are the ansers that I have to your questions. I don't know what is stopping the iMac from booting from the hard drive.

[ChasingApple]

Question, does it boot to an OS 9 CD?

[JKT]

Could it be the PRAM battery? IIRC, a flat PRAM battery in those models can cause booting issues in OS X.

FWIW, to replace the PRAM battery... see page 14 of this manual.

I also hope that you did a custom install of OS X to exclude all the printer files etc you won't need, otherwise running on a 6GB drive is not going to be any fun

[Dave B]

Originally Posted by JKT

To clarify, you could have to worry about it if the hard drive has been upgraded to something larger than the one it originally shipped with (upgrading the HD is a lot easier to do on the tray loaders than it is in later versions of the iMac, so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that something other than the original HD is in there).

The fact that he paid only $10 for the iMac clearly put it beyond the realm of possibility.

To the poster above: It must be booting from the install CD otherwise he wouldn't be able to
install Panther. What happens when you try to boot holding down the Option key? Does it indicate
that the HD is bootable?

[jbmx4life]

I got it working! The problem was that I had put the jumper into the hard drive in the "Master" position. There is a Western Digital 6GB hard drive in the iMac. When you do that on the Western Digital hard drives it makes the PC/Mac think that there is supposed to be another drive and it will keep searching for it instead of using the hard drive that is already in place. I removed the jumper completely which sets the hard drive to "Master/Single Drive". I had removed the jumper when I was doing my other experimentation with the PC optical drive but even then I think that it was just in a storage position.

@JKT - I read alot about the custom install before I even attempt to install OS X. I removed all of the language files and all of the printer files and got the OS X install down to 1.5GB. Now after all of the updates I got about 3.75GB left.

I played around with OS X last night after I got the iMac working and it seems pretty fun. I only have 160mb of RAM installed but it wasn't too laggy. Now I am thinking about some upgrades since I know everything is functional for sure. I have found a G4 (466 I think) CPU card upgrade for $159. Would you guys recommend this? I am going to try and find 2*256mb of RAm for it and that should really help OS X. I am also planning on putting in a 40+GB hard drive that is 7200RPM and with an 8MB cache to help speed up that process. LMK what you guys think about those options.

Thanks to everyone that offered their suggestions and help. I truly appreciate the efforts.

Jeremy

[Dave B]

Since you never mentioned touching the HD, nobody would have guessed that was the problem.

While that iMac is a nice machine, I would leave it as is and spend the money on an iMac DV.
In case you missed it, I wrote a manifesto on the subject recently which you might find helpful:

http://forums.macnn.com/58/imac-emac...x/#post3122064

[jbmx4life]

I guess the iMac DV wouldn't be a bad choice if I could find a nice used one locally. Seems that shipping one would be a deal killer since it would cost so much and then the chances that are taken that something might get broke/damaged.

[Dave B]

Don't get me wrong, the 333 Mhz iMac is a great machine. I would just do the absolute minimum
amount of upgrades if I were you. If you found a good deal on a 7500 RPM drive, you could always
install it and then put it in a slot-loader later. Definitley bump the RAM a bit. I am assuming that
you have the original 32 MB stick in the bottom slot (under the processor card, with an added
2" 128 stick in the top slot. (160 MB) The good news is that you don't need the special 16-chip
1 1/4" stick for the lower slot if you use a 128 MB stick. You can find those used for $10 to $20.
So you could very inexpensively get the RAM up to 256 MB, which will help a lot.

Another thing I forgot to point out is that the fan in the tray-loader is fairly loud,
while the iMac DV's and later models use convection-cooling - and are utterly silent.
You can't appreciate it until you've used an absolutely silent computer. This is why I
like the Seagates, as they are really quiet and have a 5 year warranty.

[JKT]

You can actually install a half gig of memory in that iMac (Crucial upgrades Edit: that is for the UK store, so go looking at the US store if you need to). In terms of upgrades - RAM first, Hard drive second (you can always remove it and use it as a back up drive for a newer machine once the iMac dies), and the CPU - probably not worth it IMO.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Dave B

Another thing I forgot to point out is that the fan in the tray-loader is fairly loud, while the iMac DV's and later models use convection-cooling - and are utterly silent.

Unless you aren't careful with the hard drive you buy to upgrade them My old iMac was pretty noisy due to getting an IBM HD which whines incessantly...