My beige G3 with a Daystar/XLR8 G4 CPU in it has started failing to boot OS X.
I have X and 9 on separate partitions. It boots OS 9 fine and sees all the relevant partitions and disks. Disk First Aid and Nortons don't pick up any problems with the drives.
I select the OS X partition as the startup disk (using the patched Startup Disk control panel from XLR8) and restart.
It then shows the OS 9 happy mac for a few seconds, before restarting. This time it drops into open firmware and gives me the following error:
DEFAULT CATCH! code=fff00300 at %5RR0: 0569710: %5RR1: 00003070
If I then type 'bye' to exit OF and continue booting, it says
"CLAIM failed"
and returns to the OF prompt.
The best documentation I could find on beige boot problems was on the NetBSD/macppc FAQ. I've tried the following solutions as suggested there:
init-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
removing the motherboard battery overnight
multiple PRAM zaps
setenv load-base 4000 (the default value - although it is storing this value correctly, it has made no difference)
The next suggestion is to set the variable real-base, but I'm reluctant to do this, because it's not entirely clear in the FAQ what value I should give it (NetBSD and OS X use different values) and there's a warning that the wrong value may make your machine unbootable.
Right now (from memory) the load-base is set to the default value of -1
What gives?
Is the PRAM battery good? How are you able to get it to go into 9? Is it through OF?
it might do it. I know you said it did it before, but still, OS X is very picky on the Beige. The other thing is that one ram module might be going when X starts to boot, it just clunks out and does a dump of data. it might then call up OF. If it is doing it all of a sudden with OS X, i would start looking into HW Failure.
And Jon, about the PRAM, I have my PRAM in my Beige dead, as long as the machine has been plugged in and time set, it doesn't matter with my OS X Install. If the Time is set, that should take care of it. Other than that, if the machine is unplugged, it just boots into 9 as default
But definatly try XPost. It got 10.3 running on my G3 AIO
Is your OS X system folder blessed?
Sorry to tell everyone, but it's not from a flat battery or unblessed system folders. The only times I have seen DEFAULT CATCH! errors have been with hardware that has proven faulty. Just so you know those "5"s are actually "S"s. SRR stands for Save/Restore Register.
Have a read on http://bananajr6000.apple.com/
I can start from a bootable CD using the "C" key at startup. Once there, I can reset the startup disk with the usual control panel. Once that's done, it'll boot reliably into OS 9 over and over again.
It keeps all these settings and the right date and time, so it's not the PRAM battery.
try to change the hdd strap setting, as in the jummper setting on the hdd
"strap"? And why would that make any difference? The jumpers are where they've been for the last two years, during which time the Mac had been booting fine. And OS 9 shows all the disks and partitions on the desktop.
The -only- things that have changed have been failed attempts install 10.3 with XPF, and more recently UbuntuPPC, both of which mess with the NVRAM. Seriously, I'm not going near XPF again. If I can't find a fix for this soon, I'll dig out the B&W motherboard and build on that.
/slaps head/ I wonder if the Applecare Hardware Diagnostics CD on my desk might help? I'll reboot and try some of the other hints I've found online.
hell i dunno why it does that but it fixed my booting problem in
OS X 10.2 but it booted fine on os 9.2.2 it was only a sugestion. you know the jummper on the hdd try to find what setting does what. for mine since its stock WD 4gig i was shown there is diffrent jummper settings for diffrent hdd you will have to look up your's. all i had to do was remove the jummper from the hdd master setting to put it into the single master setting wich call's to compleatly remove the jumper and it booted OS X just fine. yea i know but it is called a strap setting
Was your booting problem the same? ie did it drop into Open Firmware and give a similar error message? Was it booting OS X as normal before you had problems?
Reason I ask is that I remember having to set the pins correctly for master/slave/cable select when I installed these two drives, so I reckon I've already got that set up OK. I mean, I'll try it, but I'll try other stuff first. I've got two 10 gig seagates on ATA bus 1, one for X and one for 9 - the X drive is device 0, which I presume means it's the master. Might try swapping to ATA 0 as well.
Suggestions are sure welcome, I'm just hoping some serious OSX/OF/beige guru will notice this topic and weigh in.
Anyway, the Hardware Test CD said everything was good.
After a bit more googling, I found some more OF variables to play with, but no combo that will get me an X boot.
init-nvram or set-defaults returns all variables to defaults and empties the nvramrc on restart.
use-nvramrc? if = true, it resets a few other variables away from default and fills the nvramrc with a bunch of code on restart.
load-base default = 4000 nvramrc sets it to 600000
boot-device default = /AAPL,ROM gets set to /ide:0:8 and returns "unable to find device"
(aha........)
boot-command default = boot set to 0 bootr and returns a different error - unable to something or unknown word or whatever
I can generate a DEFAULT CATCH error all the time on iMacs and Beiges if the OF settings aren't right for the type of OS you are going to load. I've not got a hardware fault in my G3MT or my iMac 350, but I can get a DEFAULT CATCH when trying to boot a Linux CD with the OF settings set for OS X on my iMac.
Now that I'm thinking about it, NetBSD caused some DEFAULT CATCH errors if you didn't type the boot commands right in OF...
Dr. Bunsen, do you still have the drive formatted as it was for the X.3/XPF install? On my iMac I had to wipe the drive and repartition to get it to let me boot from a Linux CD after I had an install of OS X.2 on it.
did you try the reset-all command after typing init-nvram and set-defaults sorry for asking a stupid question
Yyyyyyeppp....
What are you using to set your OF? Just the command line? or a utility of some kind?
I've now tried both BootX and Apple's System Disk 2.3.1 - no luck.
Here's the setup
ide0 - CD-ROM
ide1 - disk0 - partition 0 - Jaguar X.2.6
ide1 - disk0 - partition 1 - MacOS 9.2.2
ide1 - disk1 - partition 0 - Files
ide1 - disk1 - partition 1 - blank HFS+[/code]
So the OS X install is on the first partition of the master device on ATA channel 1. The blank partition is on a separate drive.
I didn't actually get as far as running the 10.3 installer - I couldn't work out how to get XPF even that far.
I should clarify, I'm not trying to install any *nix anymore. I just want to boot back into my existing OS X installation.
(You can't boot a beige off a non-Mac OS CD anyway, or else I would have installed Ubuntu straight from the LiveCD)
I tend to use the OF command line. Many times I don't even have an OS on a machine to even try an util with.
It looks like you should be able to boot 9.2.2 and select the OS X partition for Startup Disk. You may have to reset PRAM/OF settings with some of the commands you found first though.
I haven't had my Ubuntu G3 plugged in for a while (no space) but you kinda can with mods to a tutorial I wrote a bit ago about putting Hoary on a Beige. I don't have any 5.10 PPC discs yet, but when I do I'll update it. To boot the LiveCD, you should just pull the kernel and initrd off the LiveCD instead of the Install CD, and boot with the LiveCD in the drive and let BootX do the same stuff as a regular boot.
Yes. Yes it does, doesn't it ....
::)Which is what I've been doing ... none of them work yet.
Yeah I've been reading that - I'm using 5.04 as well. Your tutorial is the first or second one in google. Thanks for the hints, I'll try them.
One more strange thing which might be a clue - when I boot from the Apple Hardware Test CD I can't see any drives at all. Booting from the Norton's CD or OS 9 I see them all. Also DIMM First Aid says one of my RAM sticks has something or other unsuitable for newer Macs, so I will try pulling that stick and see if it makes a difference.
Okay, the machine is finally up and running with OS X. If you can call it the same machine after a motherboard swap, but anyway,
After the problems I was having with it not reading the OS X install CD things just got worse and worse, until finally it stopped booting at all. Happy startup bong, then nothing. Black screen, no drive activity, no Open Firmware even.
Transferred my drives over to my benchtest machine. Still no X boot, and still no CD boot with the original beige CDR. So I swapped in first a SCSI CD-ROM from a 7500 (Apple 600i - worked sometimes but s-l-o-w), then a Sony SCSI drive from a PowerCenter Pro. This allowed me to boot the install CD (after many many attempts) and run Disk Utility. Still no boot from the existing install, so I re-installed 10.2 (archive and install). Success!!
Transferred all my drives back to the first machine... dead as a dodo.
Finally gave my machine a triple heart lung kidney bypass (motherboard transplant) with the original RAM, CPU (I was worried I'd blown the G4 somehow), new Wings PERCH card, and new ATI Rage Pro PCI card. Keeping the Sony SCSI CD in there too, even though it isn't seen in OS 9 (for some reason - any clues people?).
Also re-routed drive cables through the sneaky under-the-power-supply -and-out-the-side hole for improved airflow and put one of my ATA drives into the bottom drive bay. Snipped off the power supply fanguard to allow taller RAM DIMMs, vacuumed out all the dust with a minivac. You know, tidied up while I was in there.
So now I'm back in OS X in a new, improved machine, and everything is peachy again.
Almost...
For some reason Disk Copy fails every time I try to mount the 10.2.6 updater (from a .sit on a CD a friend burnt for me, which has worked in the past), so for now I'm on flat 10.2 until we get broadband and I can download the 100meg 10.2.8 Combo update.
Anyway, good enough for now.
Could you expand the .sit on another Mac and transfer with a flash drive?
Or copy the file to the HD and mount it from there?
Turns out the problem is with Disk Copy. I can't mount any dmg images.
i had no problems running the 10.2.8 combo updater from the software update program all went well it updated from 10.2. it runs a bit slow cause of it still has the stock G3 266mhz and has 224mb ram but have no problems at all sept a few things not working like the mic, volume button in the front, the 2 headphone jacks on the front (sound comes threw but dont shut off the main speakers) but the one in back works fine in OS X
Older macs may need an 8GB partition to install on.
They can balk at larger ones with the Default Catch error when the partition is larger.