[The_Seeker]

HI
I upgraded my rev A with an IBM 46Go IDE 7200 RPM.

1) I realised that the CDROM was set to "MASTER" (build in default) so it set the HD to "SLAVE".

2) I formatted the HD with 4 partitions HFS+ (no "extra" partition).

3) i installed mac OS 9.1 from a Mac OS 9.1 CDROM
- special installation (even though the partition was empty...)

4) installation OK. I copied a file to the HD (just to check that HD is responding, i copied files from partition to another etc..., the HD is responding well, files are copying every thing is neat when booting from a CDROM...)

5) i restrat the imac after having checked the "start up control board" to be sure the coputer would start from the HD...

6) when it boots there is a folder with "?" over it...

I reseted PRAM and it is the same.
Disk first aid says every thing is OK (when i boot from CDROM)
Norton says OK (when booting from CDROM)
Techtool 2.1.1 says OK (when booting from CDROM)

IT STILL SAYS "?" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT IS PAIN IN THE ASS i have been turning around my imac since two days i am going to be a wintel switcher really soon ;-)

Any help appreciated. Thanks

Vincent

[The_Seeker]

I found out alone.

The hard drive doesnt support many partitions. I formatted with only one parttion (HD tool with default parameters) and it worked.

Ah.... i don't think i will switch to Windows right now...

Vincent

[hidozage]

If I recall...

The iMac rev A has two IDE channels. The IDE channel for the bootable CDROM drive is set to Master and uses a different special IDE ribbon. The second IDE channel uses a plain old IDE cable. So, in theory, you can hook up 2 (thats 2) hard drive on the second IDE channel. One is set to Master and one is set to Slave.

Drive Setup (Apple's Partitioning Utility) should be able to set many partitions.

==============================
This is what you should have done...

1. Set the 40 GIG HD to Master
2. Boot from the Install CD
3. Use Drive Setup to partition the HD
4. Install the Mac OS (on the 1st partition named "untitled")
5 Reboot

==============================
My iMac Configuration:
iMac rev B. 233
192MB of RAM
one 20GIG Internal HD (master)
one 40GIG External HD (slave)
iPort (video out / Serial port)

The HD's are connected to the second IDE channel using an extra long IDE cable, one is set to slave and one is set to Master. The Slave drive is housed on an old SCSI External enclosure with has its own power. Both my hard drives have multitple partition and hold 3 OS, (linux, Mac OS 9, and Mac OS X)

[The_Seeker]

Thanks for your reply.
A second disk on the IDE channel.. hum. interesting.
I don't know what to do with the original 4Go hard drive...

I do have an old SCSI case which i could use and i will buy this long IDE cable. But how did you manage to have the cable going outside the imac???? Did you use the special panel on the right side (the blue one next to the Ethernet plug) ?

I realised that the imac has two independant IDE channels and so, i went back and set the HD to MASTER again and i did (for the 4th time) a formating using apple's disk tool. BUT this last time i only used one partition... and for unknown reason, it worked...
So i only have one partition and it is not so good for MACOS X for exemple but i dont plan to use mac OS X with a REV A iMac.

thanks. Vincent

[as2]

What partition were you installing MacOS on. I read somewhere that the system has to be within the first 5GB of the disk, so it you are installing it on any partition other than the first. This may not be the one named untitled though.

You could try moving the system onto each partition to see if it worked on one of the, and then leave it there.

Adam