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TICKET ARCHIVE -> My G3 Ibook Cant Find Os to Boot From

macsavage - Aug 18, 2005 - 1:24 am

i have a G3 ibook (500mhz dual usb) that runs OS 10.3.9, and while trying to install OS9 so that i could run classic mode, i can no longer boot up at all. when i start up, i get the alternating mac smiley/question mark. i think i was unsuccessful with installing os9, because the last time i successfully had an os running (panther) i selected os9 as the startup disk and i have not been able to boot up since then. i know that os10 is on the hard disk, as are many of my files, but i dont know how to change the boot disk without getting into an OS. please help me! i have graphics work for clients on here, and i have deadlines to meet- i need to get up and running ASAP! thank you in advance for your help, im sure the solution is so simple that ill feel very stupid that i couldnt google it myself.

CaptainQuark - Aug 18, 2005 - 8:47 am

Hi Daniel,

Seems a bit strange that you are getting flashing smiley/question mark. As you may know, that means that your Mac can't find a System to boot from.

So try this: reboot, holding down the [Alt] key. Assuming your installation of OS9 was successful, it should give you the option to boot from either. You can then choose to boot from OS X or OS 9.

If that doesn't work, try booting form your OS X installer CD/DVD. Reboot holding down the [C] key. That should take you to the OS X Installer screen, Ignore that, and look in the 'File' menu instead, for Disk Utility. Run that and 'Repair Permissions' on your hard disk. It could be that, when you installed OS 9, it affected your HD in a way that OS X doesn't like. Disk Utility should, hopefully, be able to fix the problem.

Get back to me if that lot doesn't work and we'll think of another possible solution.

Best of British to ya!
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CaptainQuark to the rescue! ;-)

macsavage - Aug 19, 2005 - 12:37 am

i held alt at startup, and i got two arrow buttons; one curling around and one straight to the right. i had this screen before, i think i had tried this step. clicking on either one of these does nothing. i dont have an osX disk (i bought this on ebay) although the previous owner sent me the original os9 ibook install disk. holding c at startup does nothing when this disk is in the drive; i get the flashing face/question mark. when i installed os9, i did it through osX because holding c at startup would give me the flashing face/? for a minute and then it would just boot into osX. i realized that this may be a risk, but everything seemed to go ok with the install through osX. i selected os9 as the startup disk, and i havent been able to boot since then. i zapped the pram but thats all i knew to do. am i going to be forced to buy a new OS? im sure that osX is on there, i just dont know how im going to change the startup disk and boot into it. any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. help my mac find an OS to boot into!

also, this may be premature, but if and when i get osX back up and running, why am i having these problems getting os9 to install? the disk is scratched up but it is readable, because i was reading it in osX. does os9 have to be installed first because it is an older os? i dont think that macs work that way, to my knowledge, and i thought that holding c at startup was all i had to do. perhaps there is a setting i need to change to let it boot from a disk. could "boot from disk" be locked somehow? i guess i should worry about one problem at a time lol

thanks for your help-this is a fantastic site and a great service that you offer!

CaptainQuark - Aug 19, 2005 - 4:47 am

Hi again, Daniel,

That doesn't sound promising. Your not being able to boot from your OS 9 CD could just be a result of it being scratched. I think that you are going to have to get OS X disks. As a general rule, it's not a question of IF your hard disk is gonna die, but WHEN (as you have just discovered)! And you're going to need to be able to boot from the OS CD to be able to fix problems and, if necessary, re-install the OS.

This is one of those tricky situations in which, without having your Mac itself in front of me, I'm struggling to come up with a solution. So I'll send this query back to the open pool and see if any of the other Techs can come up with a solution.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to help you solve your problem. :-(

macsavage - Aug 19, 2005 - 9:56 am

i made an error in my report to you last night. it turns out that the previous owner DID send me ibook osX disks along with the os9 disks, but trying to start from them by holding c at startup yeilded no better results than i had doing so with the os9 disks. im wondering if there is just a configuration problem in the bios (or the mac equivilent of a bios- does a statement like that show that ive solved more pc problems than mac?) that is not allowing it to start up from that drive, or if maybe the disk drive needs replaced. or perhaps, since i now have my os9 and osX disks, this is the perfect time to upgrade to a larger notebook hard disk. do you think that having a fresh hard disk would suddenly allow the holding-c-at-startup option to work? if so, how would i erase my current 15GB HD so that i could try that option? thanks for all the help (or at least the good natured attempts lol)