Funky Beige G3 Desktop

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Last seen: 12 years 4 months ago
Joined: Apr 22 2004 - 15:37
Posts: 378
Funky Beige G3 Desktop

I picked up a G3/266 DT at a thrift store for $15. With the original hard disk (OS 9.1 and 10.1!!! in 2GB!!! :)), it boots up just fine.

I placed a larger HD in it, and tried to boot from a 10.2 CD. The grey screen with the Apple logo appears, and the animation at the bottom of the screen starts to rotate. The video then becomes garbled and the machine locks up. :o

Attempts to install 9 to other hard disks has been problematic, since sometimes the hard disk is not detected.

It has the A/V option card, 24x IDE CD-ROM, and is using the built-in video. The battery is dated 1997. The ROM is Revision A.

Any ideas why it is doing this?

visorboy333's picture
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Last seen: 15 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
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2 things. number 1, good f

2 things.

number 1, good find for a thrift store. i rarely find anything above a LC or a Quadra at a thrift store.

number 2. the os 9 install. is it not detecting the drive in the finder only? did you open up drive setup and see if it detects the drive there? if it does. then it's the wrong format. Most likely FAT or NTFS. no biggie, reformat it. if it isn't showing up anywhere, it could be a bad drive, or could be a issue with the jumpers. (check them)

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Joined: Jun 8 2004 - 15:14
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I have had 3 thriftstore G3 b

I have had 3 thriftstore G3 beige systems, and both units that had revision A ROM's gave me this same problem. If the drive was from a PC and you can make it show up, select the options to "low level format" and "zero data" in Apple's Drive Setup. The ATA support on Beige G3's is kinda funky, and though it's fast enough, it seems to be finicky as to what it chooses to work with. Sometimes I found that running Windows drive format on my PC to clear the drive fixed issues as well. When it comes down to it, each Mac seems to have a mind of its own, and experimentation always works out the best!

Honestly, I ended up buying an 18.2 gig 80-pin SCSI drive w/ a 50 pin adapter on eBay for 29.00 and that fixed the problems and made the computer run faster than it did off the IDE bus. A beige G3 is still a very productive workhorse, and I've found that treating Rev A units like "old world" machines makes then run happier... and by that I mean fill it full of SCSI devices like it's 7xxx, 8xxx, and 9xxx predecesors (although I've had good luck using the IDE to power a CD-RW drive).

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Last seen: 12 years 4 months ago
Joined: Apr 22 2004 - 15:37
Posts: 378
Hard Drive

The drive that was being used was a used PC drive. However, it found it on initial setup of the drive. I didn't zero the drive, but I did initialize it.

After the installation completed, it would not find the drive upon restart.

I have 2 other Beige G3 systems: an AIO and a former DT that is now in an ATX case. Both systems use hard disks from PCs without problems.

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