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imacman11 · Sep 2, 2001, 03:47 PM

OK, so yesterday I downloaded and burned to a cd the 9.2.1 update. Went home and ran it on my Rev. A iMac (that had 9.1) and restarted. Now when I restarted, all that happens is a grey screen...no mouse...no mac.... no nothing... not even a whirring sound of the hard drive...or CD for that matter... I haven't tried booting up from the 9.1 CD that I have yet (mostly due to lack of time), but I wanted to know if there was another workaround that someone knew of.
I also have totally shut it down for hours and started it back up, only to recieve the same problem.

For some reason, I seem to remember the same thing happening the OSX beta...
Anyway, your help would be greatly appreciated....

runningdog · Sep 2, 2001, 06:28 PM

Could be the old 8Gb OS limitation where if the system folder gets placed outside the first 8Gb of the drive then the machine boots into open firmware (the gray screen). That's what might have happened after you installed the update. The updater might have placed the OS outside the first 8Gb on the drive.

To fix it you need to boot from a cd and defrag the hard drive. Hopefully that wil do it.

PHoynak · Sep 2, 2001, 06:49 PM

Maybe this is Apple's way to make OS X take hold? Toast OS 9 and we have no choice.....

imacman11 · Sep 2, 2001, 07:32 PM

ok...ill give that a shot then...but my drive is partitioned into 4 drives...dont think that will change anything... but its always worth a shot;...

imacman11 · Sep 2, 2001, 07:56 PM

I was readinhg through the TILs and read this about 9.2.1

2. Computers with microprocessor upgrade cards are not supported by Apple with Mac OS 9.2.1. Though Mac OS 9.2.1 may install and appear to function normally on some computers with third-party microprocessor upgrade cards, Apple does not provide technical support or assistance for Mac OS 9.2.1 when used in this way. Contact the manufacturer of your microprocessor upgrade card for support information.\

I have the newertech 466mhz upgrade on it....hmmmmm maybe they are finally getting back at all the people who were able to make their iMacs worth more than a Word Processor..........

The link to the TIL is

TIL

imacman11 · Sep 3, 2001, 01:55 PM

Hmmm...

This is getting worse...

I went home, and tried some things...

It wont even try to start up from the cd either............

so basically, it shows a grey screen, there is no churning, no cd access, no nothing (not even the mouse), and that pisses me off...

wtf can I do? I can't switch out harddrives, since it OBVIOUSLY is in the Firmware now since it doesnt even access the HD.... so what the hell can I do?

Apple really got under my skin with this one....

runningdog · Sep 3, 2001, 02:54 PM

About a month ago my hard drive crashed on me. At the time it happened my computer just froze hard. A forced reboot brought up the same symptoms you are talking about. i couldn't boot from a cd either because my cd-rom drive was flaking out on me and turns out it just died. But since then i've replaced both drives and all is well.

Have you had any cd-rom problems at all? Maybe its dead.

Maybe its just a loose connection inside?

Did you replace your accelerator with your original CPU daughtercard?

The OS 9.2.1 upgrade doesn't change the firmware for Rev. A-C iMacs. Can you hear the hard drive spinning? Is everything getting power? Tried resetting the PRAM and CUDA?

Gregory · Sep 3, 2001, 05:33 PM

You can boot into Open Firmware and do a cd eject and mac-boot. You can zap OF and reset the defaults. There is a note on MacFixit from Friday I think.

Backing up an early iMac was made next to impossible, thanks Steve. When you installed 9.2.1 update it went to completion without error? and it would have updated the disk driver while doing so and run Disk First Aid. 9.2.1 required that I do a clean install of 9.1. Some had to set extensions to the "9.1 All" set. And it may update Open Firmware.

Can you take out the battery?

Nov 18, 2001, 01:16 AM

I am having a similar problem.

Tried to boot into OS 9 from X and got just the blank grey screen. Can't boot off the OS 9 CD. Managed to boot off the OS X CD and initialize and install X and 10.1 but still can't get 9 to work.

I have a Powerlogix Bluechip 466Mhz upgrade card for my Wallstreet PB G3, so this might be an issue. I will install the original daughtercard when I can, but right now it seems as though apple has somehow fried the OS 9 capabilities of this card, which is wierd because I can use OS X just fine.

Any ideas?

Cipher13 · Nov 18, 2001, 09:09 AM

Reset your PRAM.

Apple-Option-P-R at startup; release after the third chime.

If that doesn't work we're gonna have to go deeper.

Have you tried holding option down at startup?

Nov 18, 2001, 02:19 PM

the option cmd p+r doesn't seem to work for me, it just gets me stuck back at the blank grey screen, and then I can't get back into OS X.

The weird thing is that I am using OS X with no major problems right now, but I cannot boot off of any CDs that are not OS X without having my system freeze and then being stuck out of OS X until I reinstall the 10.1 upgrade. Is there a way to boot off the OS X CDs without having to install something, like you could with OS 9, because that would make it easier for me to test things, if I know that I can easily get back into OS X.

This seems like a hardware problem to me, because I can't even boot off the 9.1 CD, but the weird thing is that I CAN boot off OS X and run OS X with apparently no problems.

superlarry · Nov 18, 2001, 08:58 PM

OSX has to upgrade the open firmware so that the computer will boot into OSX instead of looking for a classic system folder. something coulda messed up in this update. were you using the latest firmware when you installed OSX? there should be firmware updaters on the cd, or available through Software Update if you can get it to boot in OS9.