mac system schizophrenia
January 2, 2008 4:25 PM Subscribe
How do I reset the SCSI ID of the boot drive on a G3 PowerBook, without actually booting that computer up? or... Did I just turn this laptop into a doorstop?
Went to visit my Dad and he offered me a Mac G3 that he goosed up. Had 3 sets of system folders on it and Virtual PC with Windows XP. He doesn't really use computers he just likes to see what he can make them do. Like old guys used to do with tinkering with cars.
Anywho, he asked if I could use it and I said I might give it to our three year old. But I'd prefer it have 10.4 or later on it. Her two fav games (Blues Clues and Hello Kitty, Bubblegum Palace) require it. So he gave it to me with an 80GB slot HD, DVD slot drive, Firewire card, and a wireless card, with about a gig of RAM. PowerPC of course. On the slot HD it had two partitions, each with it's own set of system 9.? and system 10.2.iForget on it. He also had both systems on the 10GB internal drive. When I got it it was configured to boot off the slot drive. Then it all went terribly wrong.
One of the extensions was Conflict Catcher. Annoyed the crap out of me. Seemed to control which files were startup files. Rather than the preference setting. I tried several times to get it to change to the internal X boot but it continued to boot from 9 on the slot drive. Then I noticed a SCSI ID preference. I changed it to 01. Got a warning about how it would disable Conflict Cathcher, smiled, and did it anyway. And I'm pretty sure I then thought better of it and then changed it back to 00 but feel compelled to note it here. I got it to boot into 10.2 before this started, by changing the startup folder in Conflict Catcher. It hasn't rebooted since.
So now when I try to boot it goes to that system 9 mac icon, then restarts and does it again and then sticks on the smiling mac icon screen. Is this a SCSI ID issue? Did I perhaps kill a perfectly functioning mac?
Here's what I tried, pulled the slot drive, reset PRAM, asked it to find an alt system folder, bupkis.
So did I ruin a perfectly good computer? Any idea how to get this thing to boot?
Went to visit my Dad and he offered me a Mac G3 that he goosed up. Had 3 sets of system folders on it and Virtual PC with Windows XP. He doesn't really use computers he just likes to see what he can make them do. Like old guys used to do with tinkering with cars.
Anywho, he asked if I could use it and I said I might give it to our three year old. But I'd prefer it have 10.4 or later on it. Her two fav games (Blues Clues and Hello Kitty, Bubblegum Palace) require it. So he gave it to me with an 80GB slot HD, DVD slot drive, Firewire card, and a wireless card, with about a gig of RAM. PowerPC of course. On the slot HD it had two partitions, each with it's own set of system 9.? and system 10.2.iForget on it. He also had both systems on the 10GB internal drive. When I got it it was configured to boot off the slot drive. Then it all went terribly wrong.
One of the extensions was Conflict Catcher. Annoyed the crap out of me. Seemed to control which files were startup files. Rather than the preference setting. I tried several times to get it to change to the internal X boot but it continued to boot from 9 on the slot drive. Then I noticed a SCSI ID preference. I changed it to 01. Got a warning about how it would disable Conflict Cathcher, smiled, and did it anyway. And I'm pretty sure I then thought better of it and then changed it back to 00 but feel compelled to note it here. I got it to boot into 10.2 before this started, by changing the startup folder in Conflict Catcher. It hasn't rebooted since.
So now when I try to boot it goes to that system 9 mac icon, then restarts and does it again and then sticks on the smiling mac icon screen. Is this a SCSI ID issue? Did I perhaps kill a perfectly functioning mac?
Here's what I tried, pulled the slot drive, reset PRAM, asked it to find an alt system folder, bupkis.
So did I ruin a perfectly good computer? Any idea how to get this thing to boot?
Also, you should be able to boot it holding down Option, and it will bring up a list of available startup options (I don't know how far back this option was present in the hardware).
posted by mrzarquon at 4:47 PM on January 2, 2008
posted by mrzarquon at 4:47 PM on January 2, 2008
Response by poster: Holding the option key makes no difference.
posted by Toekneesan at 5:00 PM on January 2, 2008
posted by Toekneesan at 5:00 PM on January 2, 2008
Open firmware!
Hey, check out this video on Open Firmware trick Can you really resist a little kid showing you how to hack into your Mac and create a stack underflow? Never mind that it is totally unhelpful AND irrelevant.
But, uh, yeah. You probably want to get into the open firmware prompt, which will let you type reset-all which is apparently the solution to all your woes (follow link then scroll to bottom).
posted by Deathalicious at 6:50 PM on January 2, 2008
Hey, check out this video on Open Firmware trick Can you really resist a little kid showing you how to hack into your Mac and create a stack underflow? Never mind that it is totally unhelpful AND irrelevant.
But, uh, yeah. You probably want to get into the open firmware prompt, which will let you type reset-all which is apparently the solution to all your woes (follow link then scroll to bottom).
posted by Deathalicious at 6:50 PM on January 2, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Since you are running a Powerbook G3 pre-pismo (it doesn't have firewire onboard) os 10.3 will be the most current version of OS X you can install on it. I would check ebay for 10.3 Panther install cds, i see them going for $40 or so.
posted by mrzarquon at 4:45 PM on January 2, 2008