Thanks for the input & questions, folks. To answer the questions, I'm installing OS 8.1 from the CD that shipped with my neighbor's beige G3/233. It's the original Apple CD, not a copy.
As for the problems, they have been many and varied and not quite like anything I'd ever seen before. The first several times I tried to boot the PB 190 into 8.1 from the HFS partition on the internal drive, the Finder never finished loading. It showed the desktop pattern and (blank) menu bar, and nothing else but the pointer. I once let it sit for several hours--no change. I had to resort to the reset button on the back panel to reboot it. Disabling extensions by holding down shift made no difference; space-bar-ing into Extensions Manager generated various random errors I won't even try to describe. I disabled several extensions manually--Quicktime, Speech, etc--and the Finder still hung at the same point. I could now generate programmable interrupts, but "G FINDER" is the only command I know, and it didn't respond to that. I could now reboot from the keyboard, though. Now after thoroughly resetting the PRAM (and booting into OS 7.6.1 a few times--from the same partition of the internal drive), booting into OS 8.1 from the internal drive causes an error of type 41 and instructs me to reboot with extensions disabled--whether or not I held down the shift key! Oh, and another wrinkle--the PB doesn't even run normally from the minimal-install of 8.1 on the external drive. It boots normally, but after a few minutes it doesn't allow me to go more than 2 or so folders deep in the hard drive, or scroll down to see the part of the folder I need to see. What it does when I try is odd indeed: all the Finder windows disappear, even the icons on the desktop go away, and when they come back up, the open windows are not the ones I last saw--they're ones I remember closing a few minutes previously! They may be the ones I left open at the last reboot; I'm not sure. All through this, the pointer remains tantalizingly mobile. And if you feel like you've heard about this before--you have, in an email I sent a week or so ago. I hope I've described it a bit more clearly this time around! Any further hints/tips/odd thoughts are sure to be appreciated. Thanks, Jesse -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.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/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
