Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Koralatov · Apr 6, 2008, 03:28 PM

I’ve got an 700MHz iMac G4 that boots up to the blinking folder icon, which leads me to believe that there’s no OS on it. I tried booting into FW Target Disk mode, but every time I try, the machine simply turns off. The sequence of events is thus:

Turn on machine;
Hold down ‘t’ key;
iMac ‘bongs’;
Caps lock key blinks on then off;
iMac shuts down.

I’m at a loss. I came across several articles and threads on the internet that led me to believe it is an Open Firmware Password problem, so I tried to reset it taking out a DIMM and holding Option+Cmd+P+R to zap the PRAM three times. No dice, and it still does the same thing.

Anyone have any ideas what’s wrong? And, more pertinently, how to fix it? I really would rather install the OS via Target Disk than have to dig out the HD and put it into my FW enclosure.

seanc · Apr 6, 2008, 03:36 PM

Does this machine have no optical drive? The reason I ask is that I'm wondering if the HDD actually works or not. If you popped in an installer disc, you could see if the HDD will show up as installable. I was thinking that the HDD could be causing the machine to power off because it's dead, but it sounds more likely that the Firewire bus could be faulty or there could be a short somewhere.

Koralatov · Apr 6, 2008, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

Does this machine have no optical drive? The reason I ask is that I'm wondering if the HDD actually works or not. If you popped in an installer disc, you could see if the HDD will show up as installable. I was thinking that the HDD could be causing the machine to power off because it's dead, but it sounds more likely that the Firewire bus could be faulty or there could be a short somewhere.

Thanks for the post. I was just about to post back on the “progress” I’ve made. I had to open the optical drive via Open Firmware (eject cd), then restarted from the CD drive (mac-boot cd). It started up from my Tiger CD, but only got as far as the blue background, and then the drive spun down and it went no further. I’m really confused now. Any ideas?

seanc · Apr 6, 2008, 04:33 PM

Do you not know that holding the mouse button during startup will eject the CD tray?

Or is there something preventing this?

Koralatov · Apr 6, 2008, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

Do you not know that holding the mouse button during startup will eject the CD tray?

Or is there something preventing this?

Ah, now I didn’t know that. Next time, I’ll do that instead—much easier than messing around with Open Firmware! Now, if only I could get the Tiger CD to actually boot I’d be a happy man…

seanc · Apr 6, 2008, 05:00 PM

This is where you discover A). The optical drive is fubared, B). It's not a DVD drive, C). You don't have enough RAM.

Koralatov · Apr 6, 2008, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

This is where you discover A). The optical drive is fubared, B). It's not a DVD drive, C). You don't have enough RAM.

I suspect option C might be the issue—to the best of my knowledge, it only has 128MB of RAM, which would prevent it from installing Tiger (it’s on CD, not DVD, so that isn’t the issue). It looks like I’ll have to track down some more RAM for it, then give it a go. Alternatively, get my mitts on a copy of Panther, but that might be the more expensive option.

Thanks for the input—much appreciated!

seanc · Apr 6, 2008, 05:25 PM

What's it doing? Hanging on the blue screen before getting into the installer? If it is then that's a RAM issue.

Koralatov · Apr 10, 2008, 07:28 AM

Originally Posted by seanc

What's it doing? Hanging on the blue screen before getting into the installer? If it is then that's a RAM issue.

It was hanging on the blue screen before getting into the installer, but I managed to fix that by putting in another 256MB of RAM (bringing the total up to 384MB). However, it now starts the installer and runs fine. Only problem is, it turns out there's a dead hard-disk inside, which I suspect was what was causing it to shut down whenever I tried to boot into Target Disk mode. I have a spare drive, so I'll put that in when I get a chance and I should be good to go.

Many thanks for all your help diagnosing the problem—it was much appreciated!

seanc · Apr 10, 2008, 02:05 PM

You're very welcome, glad I could help.

ca_in_sapporo · May 24, 2008, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

Do you not know that holding the mouse button during startup will eject the CD tray?

Or is there something preventing this?

Thank you so much for this. I was having the same difficulty as others with my iMac G4 and couldn't get the CD tray to eject. Once I held down the mouse, I was able to insert the CD and use the start-up disk.