On 20.03.2005, at 08:52, Jeffrey Bergier wrote:
Does anyone know what I am doing wrong. Or is this just a bad floppy drive?
Bad floppy drive or misaligned floppy drive is one possible explanation. But it's also possible, and perhaps likely, that you cannot create a valid boot disk for such an old computer with the equipment you have at your disposal on your new computer. I've never worked with USB floppy drives, for example, so I have no idea if they're capable of setting the boot blocks on the floppy drive in order to bless its System Folder. Or it's possible that Mac OS X's Disk Copy (10.0-10.2) or Disk Utility (10.3+) programs or the command line "bless" utility cannot bless floppies, or cannot bless such ancient operating systems.
If I were trying to make a boot disk for an older Mac, I'd use a Mac with a built-in Apple floppy drive (any Power Mac up to and including the Power Mac G3 beige, any Performa, any Mac II, any Mac LC) and System 7 thru Mac OS 9. I'd use Disk Copy 6.3.3's "Make a floppy" command to copy the downloaded disk image's contents to the floppy disk. That should work. If I didn't have a disk image, then I'd format the floppy in the Finder, copy the files to it in the Finder, then open the System Folder on the floppy, then open the System file, then close both of these windows. That should bless the System Folder.
Following either of these methods, I would assume the disk should be able to boot the older Mac. If it does not, then the floppy drive may in fact be bad.
and on a separate note, there is a video card installed in the system and the monitor only works when i plug it into the video card.... the built in display plug does not seem to be working. I even tried removing the video card but it still did nothing.
I agree with Byron -- you cannot connect a normal PC VGA monitor to an older Mac's built-in video with a standard Mac-to-VGA adapter because the video output is not compatible. I believe this affects the entire Mac II line (those that have built-in video, that is -- and probably also older NuBus video cards you could install into these machines). I believe at that time "sync on green" was used; it's possible you could find an adapter to convert sync on green to VGA-compatible signals, but it's probably easier to just use the video card you already have. If you need a second monitor, investigate the adapter, or get a second newer NuBus video card.
And on another separate note, when the power is plugged in it turns on without touching the on button. Nor have i found a way to turn it off without just unplugging it. Is this normal?
Byron's suggestion that the power button may be set to always-on is one that I hadn't thought of, and it's worth checking. If that's not it, what jumped into my head was that the PRAM battery may be dead, which would not be surprising for a machine you found in a garage. If you do get the machine booted up, you can check its clock; if it's way in the past, then the battery is probably dead, and you should replace it.
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