Help with Installing Jaguar on G4

[Garibaldi]

I have a couple macs with problems, could you give me a hand?
A. This power pc mac is a g4 that has been running os 9 and 9.2. I wanted to upgrade to OS X 10.2 (yes this was a while ago because Pather wasn't out yet). I could get through the first couple install screens but it would then freeze up and crash. I tried this several times with the same results. Any ideas? Maybe a firmware update (where could I find that)?

B. I have another power pc with a G3 that I had 10.2 on. It was working fine but then one day I turned it on and it just stuck at the startup screen forever (the apple logo with white background). It would alternate between that or freezing and skewing the image. I tried the hdd in another mac and it recongized it fine, but I still can't get mine to boot. I tried reinstalling 10.2 but it won't show the drive. Ideas?

Thanks alot for any input!

[Faustus]

Alrighty! Interesting problems.

1st off removed any USB devices other the mouse/keyboard, flash the pram (google it if you need help) then try to install OSX again. If you still have problems you can try to erase the drive but most likely you have a hardware problem.

On your G3 try to boot it holding down the Option key, if the hard drive does not appear on that screen after you goto the selection screen then either the drive has issues or is trying to die/dead on ya.

To test boot from the 10.2 CD and click the Installer drop down menu, run the Disk Utility and have it do a check on the drive... if the disk util can't see the drive then you myfriend got a problem, cause then its either erase ville or new drive ville.

I do mac support for a living... my aim ID should be inside my profile. Let me know if you need anything.

[Garibaldi]

Here's something that I want to make sure of with the G3. Which of these should I have the IDE cable that goes to the main Hd in? I only have IDE cables for the bottom 2, the top one is too big. This seems redundant but I just want to eliminate all possible options. Thanks.

Here's one of the mother board and PCI slots too.

[Faustus]

Hrm... not sure if you really want to run OSX on that G3, and I'm thinking depending on the model it might not run at all.

does it not say on the board somewhere which one is IDE1 and IDE2...or IDE0 and IDE1 depending on how they labeled it?

[Garibaldi]

Let me give you an update first about the G4. Today I took out the hd that was in it and installed the hd that I had in my G3 that had 10.2 installed on it. I set it as 16 pins master. It booted fine, no problems. This eliminates my hd as the problem in my G3. It also shows that the hd in the G4 is the problem. So I reinstalled the G4's original hd. I then installed 9.2 on it. This went fine. I then tried to install the 4.2.8 firmware update, but it said that it was already installed. Is there some other firmware update that I should have?

I then tried installing 10.2 from the cd. I got about to the part where you agree to the EULA, and the screen grayed out and a message appeared saying that I must hold in the power button and restart my mac. I then restarted and booted from the 10.2 cd again. I then tried running disk utility and see if I could find something about the firmware, but I couldn't. I then erased the disk using disk utility with installing os 9 drivers. I then tried installing 10.2, it got farther into the setup, where it actually starts installing, and then gave me another error. I then tried it again, and got farther but then got the error again. I then tried again using disk utility to scan the disk for errors (First Aid) and then erasing again. No errors. I then tried installing os 10.2, and I will check it in the morning. Any suggestions?

As far as my G3, I tried booting from the 10.2 disk with command c, but it would show that it was going to for a split second and then restart. I couldn't get it to boot. What do you think is the problem, since I showed above that it wasn't the hd?

Thanks,
Garibaldi

[Garibaldi]

My latest analysis with the G3 is that it for some reason simply will not boot from the 10.2 disk. When I put the disk in at startup and hold command c, it will boot up and try to recognize the disk. For a split second it will show this screen:

indicating that it recongizes the disk, and then the screen will flash and it will reboot. I have tried an external usb cdrom too, but I don't think its capable of recognizing this. Since I had 10.2 running on it fine before for several months I don't think its a compatibility issue. Does someone know of a live-cd for G3 ppc that I could try, or any other suggestions would be appreciated.
Garibaldi

[galactica]

what do you mean by live-cd for G3 ppc?

[Garibaldi]

what do you mean by live-cd for G3 ppc?

A cd that will run the linux operating system completely from the cd. I know about several for windows like knoppix, but I don't know where to find or how to use ones for mac. Any ideas about the booting problem?

[Faustus]

Garibaldi: I'm not sure you can run OSX 10.2 on an old Beige G3. Do you know the processor speed?

[Garibaldi]

Garibaldi: I'm not sure you can run OSX 10.2 on an old Beige G3. Do you know the processor speed?

I'm not sure of the processor speed, but I believe it is between 300 and 400 Mhz. I think its compatible with 10.2 since I was running it on there for several months and because this quote from apple.com on the requirements for 10.3:

Requirements:

* Power Mac G3, G4 or G5

seems to indicate that it will work. The only thing that I don't think I have tried so far is hitting the reset button and then trying to boot either from the hd or the cd. Suggestions?

[Faustus]

CHeck out this link.

http://www.computing.net/mac/wwwboard/forum/8869.html

read through that

[Garibaldi]

Thanks Flaystus!
1. It says try undating the SCSI Card with this link:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25176
but I don't have an os 9 disk, so I have no os to install it from. Hm. Could I use a ppc linux distro? Any ideas of where to find one? Or a trial of os 9 since I only need it for a limited time.
2. Does the XPostFacto need an os to run too?
3. Since I tried the hd in another mac and it booted fine, I know its not that.
I guess it looks like the first thing I should do is get a copy of 9.2.

[Faustus]

Garibaldi, check ebay for an OS9 disk.

then install an OS9 system and flash it from there if it will let you. I've neve done the stuff they are talking about before so I dunno what exactly to suggest.