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Help! Problems after upgrading an old IMac G3 233

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Help! Problems after upgrading an old IMac G3 233

Postby EddiePaxil » Mon 11 Sep, 2006 7:49 pm

A friend of mine purchased an old IMac G3. He wants to use it as a starter computer for his son. He asked me to help him upgrade it and set it up. I followed the instructions given in an article at Macworld I followed the instructions to the tee. Everything worked I began loading the OS formatted the drive, and then ran into a snag. It would not let me install the OS it said that it must be installed on the first 8 GB, but the hard Drive was blank. I must have done something wrong, but can't figure what.

New problem, when I restarted it I got this message.
White opening screen on IMac wrote:bootr, unknown word
failed to boot
Apple iMac Open Firmware 3.0 f3 built on 12/2/98
at 10:25:41


Now I'm totally lost. On a windows computer I could hit F8 and boot from the CD and try this again. Someone help! Have I killed this thing completely. Is there some way I could use my G4 desktop to format the HD and Install the OS and save this thing. If anyone can help, please do so.
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Postby DJGM » Mon 11 Sep, 2006 10:22 pm

Luckily, that's the exact same iMac I have, although not trhe same Mac I'm typing this on right now. Maybe I can help with this.

What are the specs of this iMac, such as the amount of RAM and HDD space? And which Mac OS are you trying to install?
Aside from that, can you still start the iMac from the Mac OS CD, by inserting the disk pressing the C key at startup?
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Postby EddiePaxil » Mon 11 Sep, 2006 10:44 pm

DJGM wrote:Luckily, that's the exact same iMac I have, although not trhe same Mac I'm typing this on right now. Maybe I can help with this.

What are the specs of this iMac, such as the amount of RAM and HDD space? And which Mac OS are you trying to install?
Aside from that, can you still start the iMac from the Mac OS CD, by inserting the disk pressing the C key at startup?


It now has 256 Ram and a 60 GB HDD. Any help would be great.
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Postby EddiePaxil » Mon 11 Sep, 2006 10:57 pm

DJGM wrote:Luckily, that's the exact same iMac I have, although not trhe same Mac I'm typing this on right now. Maybe I can help with this.

What are the specs of this iMac, such as the amount of RAM and HDD space? And which Mac OS are you trying to install?
Aside from that, can you still start the iMac from the Mac OS CD, by inserting the disk pressing the C key at startup?


Forgot to mention. 1) Installing OSX Panther 10.3.5. 2) It doesn't give me the opprotunity to press C as there is no start up. It goes right to a white screen with the full following message.

White opening screen on IMac wrote:bootr, unknown word
failed to boot
Apple iMac Open Firmware 3.0 f3 built on 12/2/98 at 10:25:41
Copyright 1994-1998 Apple Computer, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ok
0 > _
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"Zapped the Pram"

Postby EddiePaxil » Mon 11 Sep, 2006 11:44 pm

OK I got the IMac to boot from the CD by "Zapping the Pram" & then hitting C at Startup. So I've got the Installer back. I format the disk, but the Installer won't Install on the Volume. It says the Volume has 57.1 GB of Hard Disk Space 57.1 of which is free. However I get this message when it comes time to choose a Volume.

Installer when choosing a Volume wrote:You cannot install Mac OSX on this volume. This destination is not within the first 8 GB of the Hard Disk.


Any ideas.
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Postby Antony » Tue 12 Sep, 2006 12:20 am

Eriel,

Have you upgraded firmware of the iMac?
Mac OS X Available firmware updates (Apple Support)
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Postby EddiePaxil » Tue 12 Sep, 2006 2:01 am

Antony wrote:Eriel,

Have you upgraded firmware of the iMac?
Mac OS X Available firmware updates (Apple Support)


No, but how do I do that when the Hard Disk is blank and I can't load the OS? Before I installed the new HDD the old HDD which was 4 GB had OS 8. I upgraded the OS 8 to OSX just to test it, and it worked, should I load an old OS first?
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Postby Antony » Tue 12 Sep, 2006 2:30 am

EddiePaxil wrote:
Antony wrote:Eriel,

Have you upgraded firmware of the iMac?
Mac OS X Available firmware updates (Apple Support)


No, but how do I do that when the Hard Disk is blank and I can't load the OS? Before I installed the new HDD the old HDD which was 4 GB had OS 8. I upgraded the OS 8 to OSX just to test it, and it worked, should I load an old OS first?
I believe you will need to boot into OS 8 or 9. Following the iMac Firmware Update 1.2 installation guide, and you should be able to upgrade firmware.

Next, which Mac OS X version were you trying to install?

If memory serves correctly, Mac OS X "Tiger" v10.4 does not support on iMac with tray loading (only slot loading).

From both Mac OS X v.10.2 "Jagular" and Mac OS X v.10.3 "Panther" installation CDs (retailer version):
(file: Read Before You Install.pdf)
Installing on a PowerBook G3 Series, an original Power Macintosh G3, or an iMac
If you see a message when you select the destination disk that you need to install Mac OS X on a partition completely within the first 8 GB of disk space, choose Open Disk Utility from the Installer menu, then click Partition to see the partitions of your disk. The first partition is the top one. Select it and make sure it is 8 GB or less in size.

If the first partition is larger than 8 GB or your hard disk only has one partition that is larger than 8 GB, you need to partition your disk agaientire hard disk, so be sure to back up your files first.
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Postby EddiePaxil » Tue 12 Sep, 2006 3:01 am

Thanks Anthony. I'll start by installing OS 8 or 9. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Postby DJGM » Tue 12 Sep, 2006 8:40 am

As it happens, the 8GB issue was something I encountered when I'd put a 20GB HDD in my old iMac, and tried to
upgrade Mac OS X to v10.2. The solution is to set partitions on the HDD, the first of which must be no bigger
than 8GB in size, or the Mac OS X installer will point blank refuse to go past the disk selection page.

Setup your HDD with 2 or 3 partitions with Disk Utility, with the first one being about 7.9GB for installing the OS.

Any documents, work stuff, music and media, or any other non-OS related data could go in the other partition(s).
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