Installing my iMac 333

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mabam
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Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

I exchanged the hard disk in my old iMac 333. I partitioned it (first two partitions well within the first eight GB of the hard disk) and installed OS 9 followed by updates to 9.1, 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 on the second partition. Booting from the 9.2.2-partition went fine.

When I want to start the Mac from the Panther CD in order to install 10.3.x, I get the following error message even before the grey Apple logo appears:

Code: Select all

DEFAULT CATCH!, code=400 at   %SRR0: 0e760e74   %SRR1: 40003030

Apple iMac Open Firmware 3.0.f2 built on 04/23/99 at 14:31:03
Copyright 1994-1999 Apple Computer, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
 ok
0 > _
Anyone who can help?
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adespoton
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

Did you boot with the C key held down to boot from CD?
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

I tried both, selecting the Panther CD as startup volume in OS 9 first, and after that failed I tried with holding 'C' pressed down. It doesn't make a difference.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

Odd; it seems to be implying that the firmware path on the CD can't be loaded by Open Firmware. Maybe the CD is damaged? You might want to try burning a CD from alternate source media and see if it has the same issue.

[edit] or cleaning the CD/filling in the scratches....
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

Well, it did make some difference after I inserted "boot" followed by enter (actually just guessing something). The first time (via the startup control panel) some small, odd version of the startup screen was displayed (at least it was reminding me of some kind of startup screen, can't describe it better). The second time (via holding down 'C') and also when I just tried it the third time (again via the startup control panel after booting into OS 9.2.2 first) the following message appeared:

Code: Select all

loading XCOFF

tsize=24000 dsize=2000 bsize=3a000 entry=5616f78
SECTIONS:
.text    05600000 05600000 00024000 000000d4
.data    05624000 05624000 00002000 000240d4
.bss     05626000 05626000 0003a000 00000000
loading .text

CLAIM failed
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adespoton
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

Yeah; that indicates that your CD is damaged, but not the EFI image (which uses a PE header) -- it's something compiled against Carbon that has an unreadable header.

[edit] Actually, even though it says XCOFF, those sections it lists are the PE sections from the EFI image. Weird. Disc is still bad though.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

The day before yesterday I tried installing the machine by starting from the Panther CD (which it did – and it doesn't appear to have any scratches), partitioning the hard disk (having the option for OS 9 compatibility checked), installing Panther and running some updates. But when I started from the OS 9 CD it couldn't load the partitions created by Panther (I guess they're too new for 9.0.2).

So I installed onto a USB stick (learning some patience dealing with USB 1.1) and ran the updates up to 9.2.2. I then booted from the Panther partition and copied the 9.2.2 installation onto the second partition. Classic mode worked, but I couldn't boot from the OS 9 partition.

I tried booting from the Panther CD in order to make an image of OS 9.2.2 on the USB stick with the intention to restore it onto the second partition (because before I had only copied OS 9.2.2 onto it). But I got the same error as today.

To me it looks like I can only boot from the Panther CD as long as OS 9.2.2 is not yet installed on the hard disk. But that doesn't seem to make sense.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

Have you used Disk Utility to upgrade the driver partition? The problem is definitely that Open Firmware can't read the data off the boot partition. It's also possible that you may need to upgrade the firmware on your iMac.

Read http://lowendmac.com/1999/imac-rev-d/ -- it points to https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT2560

This in turn points to:

iMac CD Update 2.0
iMac Firmware Update 1.2

Which are suggested firmware updates. If you haven't applied those yet, it might help. The second one appears to be to do with NetBoot, but might help. The first one fixes the noisy CD drive.
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

I backed up the Panther disks onto .dmg images a few years ago. After just burning disk 1 onto CD I was able to boot the iMac from it. The installation is running now.

You were right: Bad CD.
I wouldn't have thought so because two days ago it did work in the first place. So many thanks for that!

One thing was a little odd though: I couldn't choose the burned CD as startup volume in OS 9.2.2, but it did boot when holding down 'C'.
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

adespoton wrote:… The first one fixes the noisy CD drive.
Thanks for the links! I did run the 1.2 update years ago, but didn't know of the fix for the CD drive.
A downloadable fix for the noisy fan would seem more important to me, though ;-)

Is it correct that the 1.2 firmware update blocks the mezzanine port? And is there a way to have that undone? 'Cause before I installed Panther onto it the first time I had a colleague of my brother solder that port on the board for me (my iMac wasn't the first generation and Apple didn't like people using the mezzanine port for extensions, so it was shipped without the port).
Last edited by mabam on Fri Sep 16, 2016 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

I think the firmware update removes checks for the port; in order to fix that, you'll have to add it back in from the OF prompt using Forth. If you have access to the previous firmware, you should be able to find the Forth driver that enables access; that should allow you to re-enable access after the update. You should also be able to load that from disk to persist across power cycling, but that might involve patching EFI on-disk. This in turn would involve some detailed knowledge of the Apple EFI structure and the ability to patch PE executables that use PPC code. So doable, but good luck doing it :) Enabling from OF is the easiest option.
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

That sounds way above me. But I wouldn't know where to find the previous firmware anyway.

The iMac is fully installed again now. Thank you!
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

Since today, my iMac will hang either during boot or shortly after. No matter if I start from the installed Panther system or from the Panther installation CD. (Actually, once I could start iTunes but it wouldn't play any music.)

Verbose mode doesn't seem to help in determining the problem as it always gets past that before it hangs.

Any ideas what I could do? Is there maybe a software I could run to do a hardware check in one of the few occasions where it would boot without hanging immediately? Maybe I'm lucky and it's just the memory (which I could remove partly) or HDD (which I have a spare one for). Trying to find out by plugging stuff in and out would be very time-consuming, so it would be of much help to have a clue where to look for before taking the screwdriver.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by adespoton »

Have you ever replaced the battery? Seems to me that should be dying about now. I'd suggest replacing it and then flashing the NVRAM (or whatever that reset is called in that hardware version).

This isn't guaranteed to fix your problem, but these two steps are likely needed at this point, and may fix the problems.
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

Yes, I have replaced the battery a few years ago. I've also tried cmnd-alt-P-R while starting up (until I heard the startup sound a second time), but that didn't help.
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by 24bit »

I feel with you mabam, the CRT iMacs are not famous for ease of maintenance.
Could a AHT CD help maybe?
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/apple-hardware-test-cds
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mabam
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Re: Installing my iMac 333

Post by mabam »

It'll probably get next year until I have time to work on this. So the good old iMac will have to stay powered off until then.

But many thanks for your tip!
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