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Laminar · Apr 23, 2009, 04:18 PM

I picked a nice iMac DV SE up off of the curb yesterday during local "Throw out your old stuff day." It had a fresh install of OS 9.0.4 with the iMac restore CD still in the DVD-ROM drive.

I put my copy of Tiger on DVD in the drive, it was recognized, I opened the "Install OS X" app, and rebooted. Upon restart, it kicked out the DVD and booted from the hard drive. I restarted it, this time holding the "C" key. Once again, it kicked out the DVD. I tried booting from Disc 1 of my Tiger CDs, and the same thing happened. I tried booting from the iMac Restore CD that came with it, and the same thing happened. It will kick out the disc, flash the question mark folder a couple of times, then boot from the hard drive.

The optical drive shows up fine in the System Profiler and I can access and browse all of the discs once the computer is started up, but I can't boot from a disc. I tried resetting the PRAM via command-option-p-r and the NVRAM via open firmware, but it didn't help.

Any ideas as to what's wrong? Or is there an easy way to install OS X with only an Intel Mini and an external USB hard drive to work with?

CharlesS · Apr 23, 2009, 05:27 PM

Did you try the Option key at startup instead of the C key?

Laminar · Apr 23, 2009, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Did you try the Option key at startup instead of the C key?

I had forgotten about that trick. Here's what happens: The bootable CD will show up as a choice. If I click on it, Macintosh HD stays highlighted, and the bootable CD also highlights on mouseover, but un-highlights if I move the mouse away. Also, clicking the arrow button does nothing. If I mouseover the bootable CD icon and hit return, the computer will boot from the hard drive.

This is puzzling. I wish I still had my external firewire enclosure/CD drive, but I got rid of all of my computer troubleshooting/fixing stuff a while back.

CharlesS · Apr 23, 2009, 07:14 PM

Do you have another Mac with FireWire? You could try using FW Target Mode and see if that works.

Laminar · Apr 23, 2009, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Do you have another Mac with FireWire? You could try using FW Target Mode and see if that works.

Yeah, I have my Intel Mini, but I don't know how to install OS X onto the iMac since it's a PowerPC and the PowerPC installer won't work on an Intel machine.

With the iMac in FW Target Mode, I can see the disk in Disk Utility on my Mini, but I can't see the actual image. If I try and erase or partition the drive, I get an error telling me that the operation timed out.

I'm pretty stuck.

CharlesS · Apr 23, 2009, 08:18 PM

Hmm, maybe you're just figuring out why someone threw out that machine.

Laminar · Apr 24, 2009, 09:24 AM

Well that's why I'm so puzzled - it has a brand new installation of 9.0.4 and the restore CD was in the drive when I picked it up, so it seems like the previous owner wiped the drive and reinstalled right before tossing it.