Hi all, I'm having an odd boot problem... After trying all the "standard" solutions, cleaning, exts off, zapping, resetting, checking scsi terminations, checking scsi id's, swapping DIMMs, blood sacrifice, etc, I'm hoping one of you'all will see something I've missed...
In the past, I've had no problem booting my PowerMac 7100, 7200, and PowerBook G3 from either Apple's MacOS CDs or a Retrospect-created backup of my OS 8.6 that lives on a JAZ disk. The Mac OS 8.5 and 9.1 CDs are real store-purchased Apple discs, not copies or pulls. But now I've gotten ahold of three PowerMac 7300 systems... Each PowerMac 7300 has at least 64 MB RAM and the stock floppy and 12x CD-ROM drive they came with. Two are 120-MHz and one is 180-MHz. Each is 100% stable when booted from its internal hard drive, which contains an All-Mac / Universal installation of Mac OS 8.6. I mean these Macs are VERY stable. Everything runs fine, they don't freeze or crash during normal operations, uptime for days and days, etc. They even do well with my long external SCSI chain plugged in. The problem: When I try to boot from something other than an internal HD, they freeze!!!! Sometimes they freeze so hard the reset button is ignored and I have to pull the power cord! :( The PowerMac 7300's are unable to boot from either the Mac OS 8.5 or Mac OS 9.1 CD. The boot starts, runs for a bit, then the system freezes; sometimes before the exts crawl, sometimes during. This occurs even with no external SCSI chain plugged in! The PowerMac 7300's are able to boot from the external JAZ. The DOCS shortcut never seems to switch the Mac to look at the JAZ. And if I select the JAZ disk from the Startup Disk control panel, when the Mac boots it always freezes immediately after the (normal) bong - in the grey screen *before* the mac or floppy icon is shown! This occurs even when the JAZ drive is the only thing in the external chain. Now, here's an odd thing I discovered yesterday... The freeze during CD boot really bugged me, so I swapped out the Apple 12x CD-ROM drive in one of the 7300s with the Apple 4x drive from my old PM 7200... and now that 7300 boots just fine from the CDs!!!!! The PM7200 also boots fine, on the 12x drive! (Still doesn't boot on the JAZ tho). Help?! Is there something about the 7300 that I've totally missed? (I hope?!) Thanks! - Dan. -- - Psychoceramic Emeritus <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - South Jersey, USA, Earth <http://cronus.spaceports.com/~darmok> - Billions of people walking around - like Happy Meals with legs. -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
