Can't open CDs in Open Firmware

I'm working on a dual boot setup for my laptop, and I have run into an interesting problem: I cannot boot from CDs. If I boot into Open Firmware, and try booting the CD from there, it says that it can't. Entering dir cd:\ in the OF prompt tells me that it can't open cd. Which leads me to believe that there may be a driver problem. I can boot the OS X Leopard DVD fine though. At any rate, it would be nice to know if it's possible to get new drivers, or if there is any way around this. Thanks.

VaultOfThrones wrote:
I'm working on a dual boot setup for my laptop, and I have run into an interesting problem: I cannot boot from CDs. If I boot into Open Firmware, and try booting the CD from there, it says that it can't. Entering dir cd:\ in the OF prompt tells me that it can't open cd.
Why is there a colon in that cd command? Is this some PC thing?
And why "dir" and not "ls"?? And what's with the backwards slash?
If cd is a directory the command would be ls /cd or something like that.
What does the command ls show is in the directory? Is cd even a directory?
Usually cds are usually mounted in /dev under disk. I have never seen a cd mountpoint labeled cd.
cd seems to be a very confusing name since it's also a command.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

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    --at least on my Mac (beige, v. 2 motherboard), resetting the CUDA button, resetting the PRAM, resetting Open Firmware and "draining" the memory by unplugging the computer and disconnecting the battery for several hours ALL DO DIFFERENT THINGS.
    Specifically, if I'm having trouble booting (from a hard drive or a CD), the FIRST thing I do is restart and resetting the PRAM on the fly -- holding down command, option, P and R at startup, and waiting for the chimes (preferably at least 3-4 times).
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    After I've rebooted with Open Firmware, then on restart I should be able to reset the PRAM on the fly. If that works, then either let the machine run and see what happens, or hold down the C command and see if it will boot from the CD
    Usually, if I've fixed everything as above, the machine will boot into whatever version of OS 9 it finds on a hard drive. That's fine with me -- at that point, use Ex Post Facto to reboot into your OS X. (Before I forget: I used the shareware startup CD creator program BootCD to make an emergency boot CD based on OS 10.2.8 (which theoretically will support a beige mac in native fashion) and Disk Warrior, the god of disk repair utilities. Even though the CD should boot just by holding down the C key on startup, it doesn't -- but if I use Ex Post Facto to boot it, no problems (although the process is very slow -- be patient). Then I can fix almost anything using Disk Warrior.)
    If none of the above works, then I'll try resetting the CUDA (on my beige minitower, it's a very small black button inconveniently located between a PCI slot and the side of the computer housing). Hold it down for 15 seconds. That should REALLY clear the PRAM. I know this does something different from the previous steps because this is the only action (except the battery disconnect -- next) that clears the date and time from the memory.
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    One final finding -- I thought I'd fixed everything, but both my hard drives suddenly quit working, I discovered that during all this repeated connect/disconnect of things, one of the male pins inside one of the connectors on my Acard ATA PCI card had broken off. Not good. Fortunately, the card had a second connector, which works fine. And I did some extensive shaking of the computer to make sure (I hope) that the broken pin hadn't landed on a circuit board.
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    Graham

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