MacOS 8.5 Fresh Install help

Hello everyone,

Brand new to this forum and haven't even gotten a chance to look through it yet but I need to help out a roommate of mine.

He currently aquired a B&W G3 tower along with MacOS 8.5
Now what his problem is that the computer came with nothing installed on it at all. He went to load the OS into the dvd drive and while holding down 'c' on the keyboard the computer still can not find the system files.

Now the two cd that he as are Software Recovery and Software Install. Now It has been a while since I ever installed anything on the a mac (back on my lciii with diskettes) anyway, is he missing the actual system install cd?? Did OS 8.5 only come with 2 cds?

The keyboard seems function but we can not test it in case the 'c' key is not working. The dvd rom seems to work cause it does make its whirling noise and the light flickers on it.

Anyone have any suggestions about getting 8.5 onto his computer? Thanx for the info!!

:cry:

Maybe a silly question, but were the CDs that came with it made for the B&W G3? If not, they likely won't start up the computer. My other idea is that the DVD-ROM drive was an upgrade from a stock CD-ROM and isn't bootable. Check for an Apple logo on the drive to see for sure. You might want to zap the PRAM also, hold Command+Option+P+R at startup until you hear 3 chimes.


Brad

So if its not a bootable drive, is he hooped?

And if the discs are not the ones that came with the tower is he hooped that way too? Would an external USB2.0 CDRW work with the G3 or would I have to check the manufacturers site?

What does the PRAM do again?

Thanx!

I believe they were the iMac 8/5 install cds. Which wouldnt work on a G3 tower. Oh well....

As far as booting from it, then yes. You could check the web site, but unless they are really Mac friendly there likely won't be any information about booting from the drive. I have a LaCie U&I CD-RW (FireWire and USB) that will boot from the Jaguar CDs, but I can't get it to boot any kind of OS 9 CD. You could always try booting from it.


The PRAM stores settings for things like your time zone. It can become corrupt, and clearing it often solves a lot of different problems. No harm can come of clearing it, you'll just have to reenter information such as the time zone.

Hmmm... might you need 8.6? I wouldn't use anything lower than 9.1 and you could use Panther (newly released This Oct 25).

If you know someone who bought panther, borrow their receipt or get them to order the full version of 9.2 for $19.95 from Apple.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/...de_Form_v3.pdf