[v0id7]

I'm a student at Virginia Tech. I use my old G4 for everything I do at school. I changed my startup volume to an OS 9 system folder that apparently won't boot. Now I'm stuck with the folder and question mark. I can't find a boot disk to fix it. What should I do!? Time is of the essence!

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by v0id7:
I'm a student at Virginia Tech. I use my old G4 for everything I do at school. I changed my startup volume to an OS 9 system folder that apparently won't boot. Now I'm stuck with the folder and question mark. I can't find a boot disk to fix it. What should I do!? Time is of the essence!

Hold the option key while you boot up. It should give you a list of all the available systems on your computer and your OS X one will be listed there hopefully.

Good luck.

[v0id7]

I did that and for some reason nothing comes up even after I hit the refresh button.

[pendragon]

Just in case there is no joy here and as a fall-back option, your nearby authorized Apple reseller may rise to the occasion:
Virginia Tech Service
Kent St.
University Bookstore
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0407
540-231-5991

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by v0id7:
I did that and for some reason nothing comes up even after I hit the refresh button.

As far as I know, the open firmware boot manager (the screen you see when you hold down option at startup) can only see one System Folder per volume. Most likely you've got your OS 9 and OS X system folders on the same volume. You can set the boot device from Open Firmware (command-option-o-f at startup), but I'm not sure the exact syntax.

This page is the man page for the command line "bless" command, apparently deprecated in newer versions of Mac OS X (I'm not on my box right now, I can't tell). Interestingly enough it mentions that one of the commands essentially sets the Open Firmware's boot-device setting. Check out the -setOF command down by the bottom, it sortof details this...

You'd have to set that variable to the volume with your startup folder, check out this page for some useful commands, namely the printenv command, to see if you can figure it out.

Or, maybe zapping the PRAM (hold command-option-p-r for 30 seconds or so at startup, after about 3 startup chimes you can let it go) would kick the open firmware settings back to their stock values?

[Chris O'Brien]

Try holding down cmd-shift-option-backspace at startup.

[v0id7]

Tried PRAM. No changes other than a new resolution. The open firmware is probably the best option, but instead of looking like a normal boot volume displayed on the OF reference page it said my boot location was txbi. I've seen this before when messing with openfirmware, but it wasn't menioned on the website. I think it's too risky to just guess a boot device without knowing exactly what to change the variable to. I might just go to the University Bookstore and ask them for a disk. I'm much happier knowing I've tried a few things to fix it before asking them for help though. Thanks [APi]TheMan.

If anyone else thinks of a solution feel free to post. I won't be going to the bookstore until tomorrow because of exams.

[v0id7]

I looked a little further and found http://www.netneurotic.de/mac/openfirmware.html

All it took to fix was typing: setenv boot-device hd:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX

[TETENAL]

Boot from the system CD (hold down C while booting). Select the boot volume from there. The preference for that should be in the Installer menu.

[JKT]

From Apple Help:

Keyboard shortcuts when starting up:

Start up using Mac OS X rather than Mac OS 9 (if both are on the same volume) - press command-X during start up.

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
Boot from the system CD (hold down C while booting). Select the boot volume from there. The preference for that should be in the Installer menu.

He said he was not able to find a boot CD.

Originally posted by v0id7:
I looked a little further and found http://www.netneurotic.de/mac/openfirmware.html

All it took to fix was typing: setenv boot-device hd:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX

Awesome, though I wonder if JKT's hint to hold command-x would have worked... I can't remember if I've tried that.

[spiznet]

As you are booting up just hold X key down, and it should start up in X.

Unless you did something in OS9 like throw out the SYSTEM folder.