Beige Power PC + No Current OS + OS 10.2 disks(x2) = ???

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Fuego's picture
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Beige Power PC + No Current OS + OS 10.2 disks(x2) = ???

I have a beige g3 powerpc that doesn't go at the moment.
That sucks.

So I got a couple of os 10.2 disks and now I am trying to breath life into this sleeping giant.

So to start with I boot into the OS 10.2 install menu.
Then I format a 5GB OS Standard partition called Mork and and larger 15GB partition in Extended mode called Mindy.
I have not clicked the lock option for either of them.

Then I start the install and choose my Mork partition, all goes well until the install reaches completion (bar is full, hasn't asked for second disk at all and wants to reboot).

Once it reboots, I left the first disk in as it did not tell me to take it out/swap it, it boots into an OS X loading screen and then reboots.

It just keeps doing this.

So I take the disk out and it boots to a white screen after presenting a series of can't open statements across the top two or three lines of the monitor while booting to this white screen.

It's so close it makes me want to cry. Please help me so I don't have to cry for my mac.

Cheers to any and all.

Fuego -The knowledge must flow.

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The 1st partition is in the 1

The 1st partition is in the 1st 8GB's of the drive right? Not the 15GB first, then the 5GB?

Fuego's picture
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right

I am trying now with the 15Gb (second partition) unmounted.

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Still no luck

White screens all round

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Re: 10.2 and Beige G3

Oh Lord, do I remember this... one of the reasons I went from a Beige to a B&W (even after having successfully gotten around it.)

Do you have any other OS CDs? OS 9 perhaps? If so, break out XPostFacto:
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

XPostFacto will help the OS X installer do things properly. If I remember correctly (and it's been a while, someone speak up if I haven't please) 10.2 is supported on the Beige; however XPostFacto helps to make things go a bit more smoothly. Choosing the partition you installed onto in XPostFacto and rebooting may be enough to do it all on its own... and I hate to say it but if it isn't, you may need to install 10.2 USING XPostFacto, which would require having Mac OS 9 too. We're not there yet though.

If you can't do that, try all this:

First, enter Open Firmware (hold Command-Option-O-F on boot) and type:

init-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

Note that the means hit the Return key on the keyboard, and the spaces are for clarity only (dont type them. This'll clear all the Open Firmware settings.

reset-all will make the machine reboot... when it does, immediately press Command-Option-P-R (called Zapping the PRAM.) This will again clear those saved settings out. I know you cleared them once, but IMHO doing both on a Beige helps. Hold them down until the machine reboots again 2 or 3 times.

What SHOULD happen now is that the Mac should have no predetermined setting for where the OS is, so it should start looking. Once it finds the 10.2 install, it should reboot (why is it that Beiges reboot? B&Ws dont... must be an Old-World thing) and attempt to boot off of the 10.2 installation again.

Now, what I'm hoping doesnt happen is that you get the same thing. If you do, I have too; see below.

My machine used to CANT OPEN like nobody's business. In my case, it was properly setting master/drive/single configurations on my HD and CD-ROM. If you've got the drives on two seperate IDE busses, note that some hard drives have a "single" jumper setting (Western Digital comes to mind) and if they're the only thing on the bus, that's really really where they need to be. I'm assuming one of the things this jumper does (wild speculation here) is tell the drive to spin up sooner because it's the only thing on the bus... the CANT OPEN is because your machine cant get to the 10.2 install partition to open it, and in my case, my WD was not spinning up for a long while after Open Firmware tried to access it.

Also, my machine would not boot from a CD-ROM (no joke) unless it was a cold reboot. I had to unplug the machine entirely for about 3 minutes (dont wait 10 seconds, hehe, it wont work, although 1 or 2 minutes might) and then attempt it; at which point it would work flawlessly every single time. You might try letting the machine have a cold reboot.

If that specific scenario doesnt look like yours at all, make sure your master/slave jumpers are set correctly per not only your set up, but also per your ROM revision. This is where it gets tough; I'm not sure a person can ID the ROM present by eyeballing the ROM itself. In this case I defer to the other 'fritters.

Also, there are quite a few people onboard that know Open Firmware a WHOLE lot more than I do; they may be able to give you instructions on how to tell the computer directly, "Shut up, and boot from this partition." I'll leave that up to them as well... but hopefully, you won't get to that point Wink

HTH; I'll try to assist more if possible.

--Macinjosh

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Thnaks but still no luck

I have tried to type these commands into the firmware shell but init nvram doesn't seem to work, neither do the other commands.

Am I retarded or is something funny going on?

I have done the flash and let it reboot several times.
Doing another instal to see if it has helped.

Do you guys know where a good firmware site is, with info on what you can actually do in there??

Cheers for the help

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Re: Learning Open Firmware

First off:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=open+firmware&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Nothing fancy there, just a search for Open Firmware via Google... there are all sorts of resources there. Note that Macs arent the only machines that use Open Firmware, and youll end up with some non-Mac specific resources; but some of them may still be worth reading.

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1061.html

TechNote 1061, which is Apple's explanation of Open Firmware... may be a good starting point for you.

**EDIT AND UPDATE: Seriously, dont feel that youre missing something or that somethings awry... Beiges require a lot of finessing in order to get them set up properly where other machines wouldnt. It's off to the races for the most part after theyre set up, and they're great, inexpensive little boxes, but it can be rather trying at times.

-- Macinjosh

Jon
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Try formatting the first part

Try formatting the first partition as Mac OS Extended. THe standard/extended is nothing like it is over on the x86 world. Exteneded (HFS+) is better, and could be a cause for alot of the trouble. OS X was designed to be installed on either HFS+ or UFS.

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