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THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 01:53 PM

Ok... I originally had 2 hard drives on my iMac Rev. A. I put both of them on one long IDE cable (ran the cable out the side to the 40gb). WELL, last night I got a firewire enclosure kit from Macally so I could put the external (internal) 40gb there and use it as a Firewire (I have the harmoni). Well, of course, when I started it up after putting the original ide cables back in and such, it couldn't find the boot disk (questionmark). So I started up with Norton just to see what it could find... all my disk partitions were fine under disk doctor (I have a 120gb as the internal) and it found the old 40gb that I had put throught the FW. ANYWAY, no real problems were found, so I restarted, but it couldn't startup. So I put in OSX.2 (Jaguar to the layman) and it saw everything fine also, so I restarted after running disk utility. Questionmark. OK, so I start back up into Jag's install and decide that, what the hell, Jags got it's own partition in the first 8, so I erase it and install... NOW, every freaking time I try to install, my imac screen goes black and the power button goes amber when the progress bar hits the "E" in installing systEm software. Trust me, it's not falling asleep, because I thought that that is what it was the first time, but when it refused to 'wake up' I figured it was more. Now I giggle the mouse every couple mins to make sure. It has done that every time religiously. I've tried erasing that partition... and then installing it. I DO NOT know why it would be having a problem since when I installed it before, it was fine (OF course, it was also the master drive on a 2 bus ide chain) but its on the first 8gb, the drive is good, etc. Anyone? I'm going NUTS here.

SMacTech · Sep 23, 2003, 02:16 PM

Possibly a bad/dirty/scratched/abused Jag CD! Nah, who does that anymore these days?
Seems similar to a problem I had installing Panther, which turned out to be a smudged CD from my oily sticky fingers. How they got they way was another story.

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 02:23 PM

No... i've tried multiple cds... they all seems to crash at the same point (I work at the IT Dept).

SMacTech · Sep 23, 2003, 03:02 PM

Originally posted by THE MAC GOD:
No... i've tried multiple cds... they all seems to crash at the same point (I work at the IT Dept).

I am the IT department today, everyone else is either on vacation or sick. Please servers, don't crash!
Just a thought on the CDs, and you thought about it as well.

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 03:11 PM

OK... well something I didn't want to do, but I am doing it... I am taking it apart again to take the jumper off... its on master, but some HD's don't like any jumpers if it's the only one... SO, i'm going to try that and see if that fixes its little PROBLEM. Anyway, wish me luck. (also to make sure everything is seated properly.)

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 05:53 PM

Ok... took it apart... took the jumper off... put it all back together... and Success!! well... sort of... Now it will at least boot (goes right into 9), but trying to install X still gives me the same problem... except instead of immediately going into its 'dark' sleep, it sits there with the progress bar under the 'E' and stops responding... so...now what?

:XI: · Sep 23, 2003, 06:25 PM

have you tried zapping the pram? resetting the cuda? (Do iMacs have a cuda reset button?)

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 06:53 PM

Yeah... pressed that button on the MOBO... ill try zapping the pram also... BUT THIS IS WEIRD... I can boot fine into 9 or 7b68 (I have 3 partitions in the first 8 gigs)... but I swear to God that I can't get it to install over the first partition (3.1gigs) for Jag... I've tried erasing it for unix, extended, installing clean, but it still basically crashes at the same point every damn time.

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 07:26 PM

Well... I tried to install jag onto my 9 partition, but it also stopped at the same section... um... so Jag doesn't want to completely install AT ALL on my machine... what the heck is going on...

THE MAC GOD · Sep 23, 2003, 09:22 PM

Well, I'm going to reformat it using os9 disk (zero all data) and go from there... ill let you know whats up...

THE MAC GOD · Sep 24, 2003, 10:57 AM

OK... now I'm completely baffled. I reformatted my HD. COMPLETELY zeroing all data. Reinstalled OS9 on one partition. Put a BRAND NEW Jag disk and rebooted. Started installing like normal... Guess what happened. SAME FREAKIN SPOT. WHY would it do that? What is going on?

THE MAC GOD · Sep 25, 2003, 01:59 PM

Now this is wierd... I got my friend to let me borrow his copy of Panther 7b68 just to see... and it installs fine on any and all partitions (under the 8gb of course). SO......... why would panther install fine but Jag not? I'm REALLY confused now and I don't want to only be able to use a beta system that I'm not supposed to... What do I do?

THE MAC GOD · Sep 25, 2003, 03:38 PM

Well, i've been talking also with some people from the appleinsider forums and another guy had a similar problem because of some RAM he had installed. Apparently the Jag installer is serverly picky about the type of ram that you have... which makes sense since I just recently upgraded to 512. Anyway, i'm going to try installing in FW target disk mode...