IMac G3 won't boot after updating the firmware and upgrading the OS!

Hi! Everyone,
I have an iMac G3 333MHz (five flavors) which comes with 192MB of RAM and 6GB of hard drive. Originally, it was OS 8.5.1 installed, later upgraded to OS 9.2.2. Of course, the firmware has been updated by the appropriate method provided by the on-screen instructions before the installation of 9.2.2. After successfully updating the firmware and installing Mac OS 9.2.2, the system booted up and worked fine. However, after shutting it down and powering it up a few days later, I have encountered a critical problem:
1. At first, the iMac would chime and displayed a smiley-mac finder face.
2. No question mark appeared and the system halted because it stayed at the same screen for about 5 minutes! Also, the keyboard wouldn't respond. For instance, the LED signal light wouldn't light on when Caps Lock was pressed.
3. I assumed that this is just a typical crash and rebooted the machine via the "reset" button on the right side of the machine.
4. After restarting, well, no luck, the same condition. Therefore, I rebooted it again by using the method mentioned above.
5. The condition of sticking at the smiley-mac finder face occurred again! However, this time the iMac wouldn't chime and just displayed the mac face.
6. Another restart, well, it was getting worse... no chime and no smiley-mac finder face but a white screen.
7. I was frustrated then and shut the machine down forcefully by rebooting it again and pressing on the power bottom quickly before the screen appears. Also, I unplugged the power cord.
---------- After a few hours later ----------
8. Okay, I then plugged the power cord in and booted it up again, this time, it would chime but stuck at the white screen. => No smiley-mac finder face appeared!
9. Rebooted it again, the result was as same as step 8.
10. Another restart, the smiley-mac face finally appeared but still... stuck here and this time, no chime.
11. I then shut the machine forcefully by using the method mentioned above and let the machine rest for about a day with the power cord unplugged.
---------- After resting for a day ----------
12. I booted it up and it would chime, but no screen (the power button was orange, not green). I then forcefully shut down the machine.
13. Waited for about a minute and powered it up. This time, I tried to clear the PRAM, but no chime and gave me a white screen. => No luck! As mentioned, the keyboard's LED signal light wouldn't light on even though the Caps Lock key has been pressed.
*Note: The keyboard has been tested on the other computers and it worked. Also, I tried different USB ports to plug the keyboard in. => The USB ports were all in working condition， as I can know from the last successful start up.
14. Forcefully shut the machine down and tried to enter the Open firmware, no luck. It didn't enter and gave my a white screen.
15. Conclusion:
1) After resting for a while, the iMac would chime.
2) Rebooting too much times would cause the machine not to chime and leaded the screen to become white instead of the smiley-mac finder face.
3) However, rebooted the machine when the screen became white, the smiley-mac finder face would appear again without chime.
By the way, I could hear the hard disk spinning up so that means the hard disk is working.
Can anyone help me solve this problem? Is it related to the firmware update? Any suggestions will be appreciated! Thanks!
Andy

OK, I will try replacing the PRAM battery. Also, the PowerMac G3 and the other iMac 233MHz had the dead batteries. They are still working though... Should I replace them along with the iMac 333MHz? In case of not replacing, will they malfunction in future times? There are some symptoms on this two machines: 1. iMac 233MHz - No chime and no sound when adjusting system volume (the bi sound is not available), but iTunes and other applications can still use the audio device and output the sound via internal speakers; 2. PowerMac G3 450MHz - Will chime but sometimes hard to boot: 1) Chime but no screen; 2) No respond after pressing the power button => the power signal light won't light on. Every time I experienced this, I would open its case, pressing a small button (not quite understand what it does... anyway, just works if system halted.) near the PRAM battery and wait for about a minute, then close the case, and it boots. However, I have to reset "Date & Time"...

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If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

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/dev/md2 / ext3 defaults 0 1
mdadm.conf
ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=0.90 UUID=7ae70fa6:9f54ba0a:21
47a9fe:d45dbc0c
ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=0.90 UUID=20560268:8a089af7:e6
043406:dbdabe38
Thanks!

Hi magec, that's quite helfpul - I've certainly got further.
Before I was doing this to set up the chroot (which is what is suggested in the wiki article about setting up software raid):
mdadm -A /dev/md1 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
mdadm -A /dev/md2 /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2
mount /dev/md2 /mnt
mount /dev/md1 /mnt/boot
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
But based on your suggestion it's working better
mdadm -A /dev/md1 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
mdadm -A /dev/md2 /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2
mount /dev/md2 /mnt
mount /dev/md1 /mnt/boot
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
mount -t sysfs none /mnt/sys
mount -n -t ramfs none /mnt/dev
cp -Rp /dev/* /mnt/dev
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
The boot is now getting further, but now I'm getting:
md: md2 stopped.
md: bind<sdb2>
md: bind<sda2>
raid1: raid set md2 active with 2 out of 2 mirrors
md2: detected capacity change from 0 to 32218349568
mdadm: /dev/md2 has been started with 2 drives.
md2: Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/md2 ...
unknown partition table
mount: mounting /dev/md2 on /new_root failed: No such device
ERROR: Failed to mount the real root device.
Bailing out, you are on your own. Good luck.
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job contol turned off
[ramfs /]#
The bit that really confuses me is this:
[ramfs /]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md2 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
31463232 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md1 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
208704 blocks [2/2] [UU]
unused devices: <none>
[ramfs /]# mount /dev/md2 /new_root
mount: mounting /dev/md2 on /new_root failed: No such file or directory
[ramfs /]# ls /dev/md2
/dev/md2
[ramfs /]#
So the array is up, the device node is there but it can't be mounted? Very strange.
Last edited by chas (2010-05-02 11:24:09)

IMac G3 won't boot after updating the firmware and upgrading the OS!

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