[schuster]

hi all,

I just got my copy of mac os 9 from cyberian outpost today. Unfortunately, my blue and white G3 freezes when it tries to boot from the cd. It's a G3 400 w/ the apple Ultra2 card and a JazJet card. I tried taking out the JazJet, but it didn't help. I doubt that it matters but, my HD has three partitions, one of which is a Yellow Dog Linux parition. I've heard that BootX has some issues w/ mac os 9, that YDL won't boot w/o the new beta of bootX. I also have an hfs partition and a hfs+ partition. Is anyone else having this problem? Thanks in advance.
-Dan

my blue and white G3 freezes when it tries to boot from the cd

Could you be more specific? This is actually quite vague. For example:

o Does it just freeze or are there any error messages?

o At what point in the boot process does this happen?

o Do any extenions show up along the bottom of the screen?

o Can you boot off other CDs?

o Is AppleTalk on?

o Did you try zapping the PRAM twice (wait for the second chime)?


If you're feeling a bit adventurous, you may want to try unplugging the SCSI cable from your internal hard drive, and then booting off the CD. If it still freezes, it probably has nothing to do with Yellow Dog or your partitions. I wouldn't recommend this unless you're comfortable doing that type of thing, though.

- Scott

------------------
Scott Stevenson
Contributing Editor,
MacNN



[This message has been edited by scott (edited 10-23-1999).]

[schuster]

When I say freeze, I mean freeze. The box locks up before any extension load. I agree that the partitioning of my hd has nothing to do with it. Since I actually took the few seconds to browse through the instructions, I saved myself the trouble of having to revert back to 8.6 (let that be a lesson to the rest of you). My computer has never fully booted into os 9. I'm thinking that I'll try pulling out the ultra2 card tonight. I'll post the results when I'm done. I believe Apple Talk is on in 8.6 and I have not zapped the pram yet. Other people have expressed problems with scsi cards, I'm hopeful that pulling it out will work.

-Dan

[schuster]

Okay, I just tried removing the scsi card and it still crashes. I find this very odd. I wonder, could it be a badly mastered CD?

[Macdriver]

I got OS 9 from Cyberian today also. Running a B&W G3 256meg Ram.... Freeze on boot either with "C" key or selecting CD as startup. No error message, just stuck about 10% into the progress bar.

[schuster]

macdriver, what specific hardware do you have? I'm starting to think that we got bad CDs.

[Macdriver]

I have a B&W 400Mhz G3 with BTO SCSI, 256Meg Ram, SX serial card, ProTV card, VST external firewire drive Macally Keyboard, Kensington Track ball. Firmware update 1.1 everthing else stock. I think the CD must be bad, I have never had a problem booting from a CD befor

[schuster]

Well, as it turns out, if you go over to the forums at mac fix it, there are some ppl w/ G3 400s who are having the same problems. We all have scsi cards too (I have two of them). Oddly, removing the scsi cards doesn't seem to help. What other hardware is specific to the G3 400 though?

[Macdriver]

multiple Hd's seems to be a common also. I have 2 internal, 1 Jazz external on the SCSI

[schuster]

hmm, I only have one Hard Disk, but I do have both a zip and a jaz. The zip is on the ATA though and the Jaz is on a JazJet scsi card.

[schuster]

bingo, take a look at the "Before you install" file on the CD. There's some interesting information about scsi cards.

[schuster]

problem solved. for me it was my usb hub. if you have a hub, unplug it and boot from the cd. after you install, plug it back in and reboot, everything should work fine.

This isnt going to help anything, but it might make you guys feel better, or confuse things even more. My G4 450 AGP machine also freezes when trying to boot off of the OS 9 CD. It does exactly what your describing, freezes after about 10% of the progress bar has passed. I finally just copied my old system folder to another partition and booted off of that. I then installed the new system on the partition I wanted it on, and then used Conflict Catcher to merge the 2 systems. Everything seems to be working fine, although I havent tried to boot from the CD again.

[Macdriver]

Got the CD to boot on my B&W G3 400 SCSI... Disconnected all USB externals except the keyboard and mouse, disconnected all Firewire externals, disconnected all SCSI externals. Selected CD as startup and did a restart. Very very slow boot but it did boot completely

FWIW, I have an 8100/110 (NuBus) with a Sonnet Crescendo 293MHz G3 Upgrade Card with a ton of ADB and SCSI peripherals, including my CD (External, 2x, caddy load!). I am used to slow CD installations and boots, but this was the S L O W E S T boot EVER!

I installed over a copy of my 8.6 System folder on an auxilliary drive. 40 Minute install. Then the sucker froze when it hit the NEW Iomega driver!! When I took that INIT away, it froze on My SilverLining Driver trying to locate my two SyQuests! Sheeeeesh! Bottom line: I have to wait for LaCie to Update my Disk Driver Software. Not all that bad, since I'm also waiting for Aladdin, and Symantec, and Nifty-Neato, and Visioneer, and Diamond Multimedia, and Wacom, and...

I had no problems booting from the CD on my G3/400. It is a stock model with an Adaptec 2940 -- not BTO. I have a standard Apple USB keyboard attached, as well as a Logitech Wheelman.

- Scott

------------------
Scott Stevenson
Contributing Editor,
MacNN



[This message has been edited by scott (edited 10-24-1999).]