Wallstreet not booting from OSX CDs

I'm still helping a friend with his two Wallstreet PDQs. The one I posted about in this thread is limping along OK as long as the owner keeps it on its cooling pad. Now the other, a 266mHz (OS 10.2.8 and 9.2.2 in separate partitions; 40GB Toshiba drive; 384MB RAM) started taking forever to boot. It appears it has a dead PRAM battery and is going to the OS9 system folder for booting but can't complete. It went to the Open Firmware prompt once but won't boot into OF now.
The computer will boot from an OS9 retail install CD and an older (v3 for OS9 and older)) TechTools Pro CD but will not boot into OSX from a retail Jag install disk or an OSX DiskWarrior v3.0 CD that previously booted OK into OSX on that computer.
Once I get an OS9 boot, the system cannot see the OSX volume where there are files I need to recover.
The TTP CD reported the drive is whacked--I can accept that--but, IMHO opinion, that should not prevent an OSX boot from a valid CD.
I have reset the PMU per Apple procedure, zapped the PRAM, tried to force an X boot with the X key, tried to get the Startup Manager by holding the option key--all to no avail.
Any thoughts on why I can't get a boot from an OSX CD? Even it the defective drive is removed, the Book should boot from an OSX CD. I know the CD-ROM drive works because it can boot from an OS9 CD.
I'd like to get one more X boot to recover files.
Thanks in advance,
Allan

Allan,
The left bay will not take an optical drive...it's too large, but it does take a Zip100 drive or an OEM floppy drive or media bay HD.
I'll explain the long startup times on the Wallstreet: After the startup chime, the Wallstreet runs a memory self-test that is just plain slow. The more installed RAM, the longer the test. When I first bought my Wallstreet, it had (gasp) 32MB of RAM; from startup chime to first light on the display was about 5-10 seconds. After I installed a 256MB module (total 288MB), this "dead" time increased to 40 seconds...really quite amazing. Resetting the PRAM, if I recall correctly, requires a long pressing of the keys to get that second startup chime. So if you are experiencing something similar, it is normal.
I cannot explain the 'out of memory' message when running TTPro but it may be the same when running DiskWarrior. When performing a major restructuring of a volume, ideally it is run from another volume that has read/write capabilities like an HD; the utility then has the necessary space to temporarily store changes. If running from the Utility CD, it can use up RAM pretty quickly. This again highlights the limitations of the Wallstreet...no easy access to another bootable HD.
The concern again returns to the inability of the Wallstreet to boot an OSX CD. If I had access to two Wallstreets, and has also tried all the suggestions up to this point, I would try this:
-Try the optical drive from the "working" Wallstreet in this 'book even though 9.x CDs boot; this is just a quick test to eliminate any possibility of a marginal drive; or you could test this drive on the working Wallstreet. Make sure you also try booting the same 10.2 CD.
-Swap one microprocessor card into the other Wallstreet and test. As I mentioned earlier, there have been a few Wallstreets (and Lombards) that would not run OSX and a replacement microprocessor card was the solution. Even though this Wallstreet has run OSX in the past, and since nothing up to this point has provided a solution, I would try this procedure if I had two Wallstreets.
See if your 'book will enter Open Firmware as an additional test of hardware:
http://www.macintouch.com/laptopbatt.html#jul17

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T500 will not boot from bootable CDs/DVDs, but will read and open files on them

System: 2 T500s, both manufactured early April 2009, win XP, ATI Radeon 3650 graphics,4GB RAM, latest Lenovo drivers installed..
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Here an example of our 2 T500s' failure to recognise bootable CD/DVD discs. All the files and folders on a Paragon Partition Mgr v8.5 Recovery CD can be viewed in windows explorer and files such as jpg, txt and zip can be opened. This CD will not boot the T500, however, it will boot our other -non-Lenovo- computers. The same applies when the media are DVDs with identical content.
We have tried several different kinds of CD and DVD media to no avail. Burning the media on other computers and using several kinds of burning software does not help, ourT500s refuse to boot from them too.
The problem seems clear enough, on starup our T500s fail to distinguish between windows coded bootable and ordinary CDs/DVDs -unless they are Lenovo recovery/restore discs.
A solution would be gratefully received.

Thank you for your very kind assistance,
Q: "1. Did you apply the DVD firmware fix here?"
A. It was` already installed on our 2 T500s. We have also applied just about every driver update from Lenovo.
Q: "2. Did you try booting from a USB optical drive that you first attached to another system where you could verify that booting from it was possible?"
A. Yes, many times from a USB CD/DVD drive, it failed too. We burned on that drive too, but the T500s will not boot from those CDs either.
Q: "3. In this thread the solution was to use another burning program than Roxio..".
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For some reason, our two T500s' CD/DVD drive controllers or some intermediate software act as if the CD's boot sector is not present. Clearly, something (BIOS, software, unstable hardware, or ? ) is blocking the read or write of the data necessary to boot these CDs. Whatever that 'something' is, it has no effect on burning and booting Lenovo recovery CDs.
The bizarre part of all this is that a`Lenovo recovery CD burned on the T500 drive WILL BOOT the T500. A Paragon v8.5 recovery CD or BartPE CD burned in one of our non-Lenovo computers will boot ithat and every other computer we have except our T500s.
PS Thank you for the link to the new version of Roxio, will download and install it.

Can not boot from OSX disc

I recently partitioned my internal drive with an 80 gig partition to run Ubuntu , removed Ubuntu and now can not resize hd to recover the 80 gig that I used , there was a program with this Ubuntu install called rEFIt that was installed for the dual boot , My problem is that Itunes keeps crashing and I have spent somewhere around 8 hours trying to fix this issue and in the process I discovered that I now can not boot from the osx disc but I can boot from the Ubuntu disc , what can I do to correct this issue or is there anything that I can do to correct this and recover the 80 gig that I used ?

The only solution was to erase hd and restore from time machine backup......
According to everything that I have seen , read and tried when you partition the mac hd the way that mac is designed it will lock the hd thus preventing any access even using the startup disc to repair. As far as restoring everything after the erase and reinstall of the OSX that was easy and painless. FOR ANYONE WHO DOES NOT BACKUP THEIR DATA THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD!!!!
Once OSX is reinstalled the migration assistant will ask if you want to restore from a backup , if you have time machine or any other sort of backup simply choose the one you wish to restore from and continue , must admit I was a bit hesitant at first , I must say that everything restored with the exception of some settings that I have had to restore but they were not major settings , after the backup is restored simply run update check and reinstall all updates , may need to do this a couple of times.
Depending on the amount of data you have will determine the length of time for restore (500 gigs about 6 hrs.) but it will restore user account settings , connection settings and network settings.
Hope this will help if anyone has experienced the same problem.

Disk Utility broken while booted from Installation CDs??

Situation: I have a Macbook Pro with a 120 GB HDD. I had partitioned it into two partitions, and later desired that I should have only one partition on the drive. I booted the Mac OS X installation CDs and attempted the following three-step procedure:
1. Use Disk Utility to image my system partition into a file on an external USB drive
2. Verify the image and repartition ("Erase") my laptop's internal HDD
3. Restore the disk image from the external HDD to the laptop's HDD.
I made it to step 3 without issue. So currently I have one unbootable Macbook Pro, an 85 GB image of a system partition on a USB HDD, and a perfectly bootable Intel Mac Mini from which I'm writing this post.
Problem: Disk Utility doesn't seem to be able to restore images when booted from the Installation CDs. On the 'Restore' tab there are two fields you must fill in, a 'source' field and a 'destination' field. The source field has a button where you can summon a very helpful file-picker, and it pulls up my disk image from my USB drive just fine. However, the destination field can only be filled in by clicking and dragging a drive from the left panel in Disk Utility.
However, it seems impossible to do this while booted from the Installation CDs. When I attempt to click and drag a disk from the left panel list, all I end up accomplishing is selecting multiple items from the list. To make a visual illustration:
Instead of this, like I get when I try it on my mac mini booted normally:
http://upload.pbase.com/silentplummet/image/72221384.jpg
...I get this, which is a photo of my macbook pro booted from the installation CDs:
http://upload.pbase.com/silentplummet/image/72221397.jpg
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Now I am a college student; I'm not really losing revenue or anything over this, but this is an awful oversight on Apple's part and I am stuck on what to do about it. There is no documentation that says "Restore functionality is crippled in Disk Utility when booting from installation CDs." Here are the steps I have tried for an alternate solution:
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-Call Applecare. The support rep was kind and helpful but couldn't offer a solution. The higher-ups fed me some BS about not supporting third party applications, well, I hardly think Disk Utility constitutes a third party application.
My next step is to boot the MBP in target disk mode and use my mac mini to restore the image to the MBP HDD, but I have to buy a firewire cable for that and I don't really want to.
Seeking: acknowledgement that Disk Utility is broken and Apple *****, or otherwise immediate solutions to restore the image to my HDD that do not constitute monetary expenditures on my part.
Macbook Pro 15" 2.0 GHz Mac mini 1.5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Others have (in the Mac Pro forum) noticed this bug in Disk Utility on the Intel version install disks. Your easiest fix would be to reinstall OSX on you Macbook disk, boot it, mount the disk image from the USB drive, and use the Migration Assistant to copy over all your accounts and data files.

G4 that will not boot from any disc EXCEPT the Apple Hardware Test CD

We have a DP 1ghz Quicksilver PowerMac G4 that will not boot from any disc EXCEPT the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with the machine.
We were in the process of installing 10.4 Tiger before placing it for sale.
The Mac was originally OSX Server 10.1 that we later converted to a worksation running 10.3 Panther.
It has 1 GB of memory, 80GB hardrive, 250MB Zip Drive and a Radeon 7500 video card.
Since this machine only has a CD-R drive and not a DVD-R, we installed Tiger using another Mac via Target Disk Mode. The installation process went well, but when I tried to reboot I got a Kernel Panic right after startup screen with the grey Apple logo.
On some reboots we get to the blue startup screen, others it stops at the grey Apple logo, others a black box like the a Kernel Panic - but with no text. Twice it went directly into Open Firmware.
We have done the following during our troubleshooting:
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- Replace Video Card with one from another working Quicksilver
- Zap PRAM
- Reset CUDA switch
- Unplug the MAC and remove everything (RAM, Battery, etc) for 30 minutes and try to reboot
- Tried booting from the Macintosh Server G4 Software Restore CD
- Tried booting from Mac OS X Server CD
- Tried booting from AppleCare Protection Plan CD with TechTool
- Tried booting from Diskwarrior CD
- Tried booting from an external FireWire drive with a disk image of Tiger OS Install
- Tried booting with the hard drive disconnected
The Mac WILL boot from the Apple Hardware Test CD and will pass ALL of the extended tests.

Conventional wisdom says that any Mac that will not boot up from a System/Install CD OS 9 or an Install CD Mac OS X, has a Hardware problem.
The diagnostic CD is a red herring because it uses a very primitive method of reading the CD, and so does not properly represent the machines general ability to read CDs.
I would look at the CD drive cables, etc, and see if another drive gives different results.
You have not mentioned using the Startup Manager (option key at Startup) to do any checking:
HT1310- Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume

Can't boot from OSX and may have a virus

I'm having a similar problem as Davo21 in "computer won't boot up in os x". After running Norton System Works to try to resolve an issue that I was having with my computer, I'm getting a message, "/etc/master.passwd:not a directory" on a black screen when I try to start up.
It started in early December after I downloaded some stuff off the internet and it seemed like I might have picked up a virus. I know, that's not supposed to happen with OSX, but my computer started doing wierd things like switching out icons for whole types of files - i.e., .wav files would show up with a totally different icon. Restarting solved that problem, but I noticed that on both my wife's and my computer (both Macs - hers a Single core Intel Mini running OSX 10.4 and mine a G3 700MHz running 10.3.9) the internet was running exceptionally slow, while on my work computer (a Dell PC running Windows XP) it was running just fine. All three computers are networked, so I surmised that something was affecting the Unix system but not the Windows, but when I ran Norton Anti-virus, it came up clean. More wierd things kept happening, so last week I decided to run Norton Disk Doctor and it changed thousands of directory settings and now my computer won't boot up from my main boot drive with OSX 10.3.9. I've run the Disk Utilities on the 10.3 Install Disk and I've run Disk Warrior and they both say that the boot drive is repaired, but I still get the same message when I try to start up normally.
I have several partitions on my original drive and several more on the additional 240GB hard drive that I installed a couple of years ago, so I can boot up from an old copy of OSX 10.2 on another partition. The latest wierd thing is that now one of my other partitions on the original hard drive won't mount.
My questions are:
1) How do I get back to being able to boot from OSX 10.3?
2) Where can I get help to figure out what's going on with my computer and how to remedy it?
I've been looking at some of the information on the Leap-A malware and it seems like there are some similarities, however I'm running OSX 10.3.9 and not 10.4.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
G4 700MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G4 700MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

DMcSantaFe,
as was said before Norton Utilities and Disk Doctor were discontinued almost 3 years ago (for some very good reasons!). It caused much more trouble than it solved.
Here are the articles:
Symantec discontinues Mac Norton Utilities, SystemWorks
Norton Utilities, SystemWorks development halted
TMO Scoop - Symantec Confirms Norton Utilities & SystemWorks' Demise [Updated]
Tech Tool Pro and DiskWarrior are presently the most reliable utilities. For more information on regular housekeeping read this: MacOS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance
Unfortunately Norton usually damages the file system beyond repair. The only cure is a reinstall.
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

RE: HP XP Media Center 2005 Ed will not boot from HP System Restore CD's

RE: HP XP Media Center 2005 Ed will not boot from HP System Restore CD's.
The following instructions about the "Code Purple" error FAILED. Error is still present.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
***PLAIN ENGLISH QUICK AND EASY FIX FOR ALL SYSTEMS****
***Windows 7 code purple or Windows Vista code purple***
With the code purple error on the screen, press shift+f10 (the shift key and the F10 key (at the top of the keyboard) at the same time) to open a little screen called a command prompt. (So, you get a little black screen with white text that says something about your Windows verison first and a little ways down you'll see "C:\>".   It's all ready for you to start typing.)
Type the following line, just as you see it here...
notepad C:\hp\bin\checkdmi\checkdmi.cmd
so it will look like this
C:\>notepad C:\hp\bin\checkdmi\checkdmi.cmd
Press Enter.
You will see the text for the file listed in a window using a simple text editor.
Go to the beginning of the text. Press enter to make a space. Type this...
goto cleanup
So, whatever comes after, the first line looks like this...
goto cleanup
Save the file and exit notepad and restart your PC. You are good to go.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
RESULT: Same error and problem.
So, NOW THE SCENARIO IS THIS...[ And A CHALLANGE TO ALL HP Software EXPERTS]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. The PC will not boot the System Restore CD's
2. The Original OS install and [HP_RECOVERY] disk sector has been severely damaged by
all of the following:
   A. Massive Virus Infections as shown by Kaspersky Virus Scan and cleaned up.
   B. The user had originally updated the pc to Vista Business Express Upgrade
       (Supplied by HP with the original purchase and warranty).
        (Prior to the upgrade, Media Center was working correctly.)
   C. The original OS product key(XP Media Center Ed. 2005) has been changed by the Vista Business Express upgrade.
   D. The destructve recovery done by PC-Doctor has done user file damage(s).
   E. All software, and possibly hardware could be corrupted & damaged by viruses,
   incomplete recovery, and the unknown failures and conditions.
To sum up, the system is locked in an unknown state, waiting for expert help.
(I can allow and manage to let someone diagnose, repair remotely using another OS i.e.Linux Opensuse 12.1, or XP Home ed if needed.)
SO IF YOU THINK YOU ARE UP TO THIS CHALLANGE, SEND MESSAGES TO DAVHPForum anytime. Thanks in advance!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hello @DAVHPForum,
Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience! To help you get the most out of the HP Forums I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More.
I have read your post on how you are not able to boot your computer using the HP system restore CDs, and I would be happy to assist you in this matter!
If you are not able to recover your system by following the steps in this document, please call our technical support at 800-474-6836. If you live outside the US/Canada Region, please click the link below to get the support number for your region.
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-phone-assist.html
I hope this helps!
Regards
MechPilot
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

PowerPC G5 will not boot (from CD, single-user, verbose...) - is it dead?

I had posted this in the OSX forum but had a suggestion to post here as well - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
My PowerPC G5 (10.4.11) will not boot. It gets to the grey Apple screen, and then freezes there, no progress dial, and the fan starts racing after a couple of minutes sitting there. Here is what I have tried so far and the results:
-Will not boot normally - freezes at grey screen
-Will not boot from CD (DiskWarrior, 10.4 Install disc OR 10.3 Install disc - which came with the G5, each time it freezes at grey screen
-Will not boot in safe mode - freezes at grey screen
-Will not get into single-user mode, freezes at "DART-enabled"
-Will not get into verbose mode, freezes at "DART-enabled"
-Holding option when starting up allows me to select a drive (hard drive or CD), but then freezes at grey screen when attempting to boot from either drive
-Option-Command-Shift-Delete does nothing when starting up, again freezes at grey screen
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I have tried everything I could think of and everything I can find - Does anyone have any possible suggestions or ideas for what I can do?
I had a couple suggestions that it could be RAM, so I'm going to try to run Apple Hardware Test, though if I can't boot from a CD, that will make that very difficult. Any thoughts?

Hi svman8-
Did you also reset the SMU?
One thing known to cure various ills is to replace the battery.
This may be a helpful link:
How to reset the SMU on a Power Mac G5 (Late 2004) or Power Mac G5 (Late 2005)
Luck-
-DP

Optical drive trashed and MB Pro will not boot from USB image

Hello,
New here but I have searched and tried all I know to get this MBP working right again. My disk drive is trashed and has been for some time now, this is why I have a bootable version of Snow Leopard on an 8G flash drive. When my MBP began acting funny recently and I went to disk utility to verify permissions and the disk. Both failed = must boot from disk to repair, thus my issue. For some reason by MBP will not boot from the usb image I have used previously??? Pressing C or Option during startup does not work. If I press Option, I only get the harddrive option, C yields nothing and the computer boots normally.
Please!! let me know how / what you would do to resolve this. I don't understand why I have previously been able to boot from this same file on the same drive previously to repair my disk / permissions but cannot do so now. FWIW, I tried placing the file (OSX) on my external HDD to boot from, this did not work either (USB HDD).
Thank you in advance for your input!!

It isn't clear what you mean about your HD being trashed or which disk (HD or USB drive) you are trying to repair, but either way you need to start up from your Snow Leopard installer DVD & instead of installing anything go to the Utilities menu & run Disk Utility from there to repair either or both of the disks.

Imac 21" mid 2011 can not boot from USB device?

Hi,
hope someone can help me.
Bought the new imac 21" and replaced the superdrive with a ssd drive.
Works great but it seems that the imac is not able to boot from any usb device.
I put my osx install disk in my external dvd drive and powered my mac.
While booting up (pressing cmd) the mac does not recognize my external dvd drive. This works great with my MBP late 2008. But the imac can not boot from the dvd drive. Also pressing "c" while booting does not work. Doing that a grey screen appears and after some time mac boots from hdd.
So i installed mac os via target mode over firewire withbmy old imac. This works.
But now i want to install windows on a bootcamp partition.
I can't boot from the windows 7 professional dvd, too. So i tried to create a bootable win 7 thumbdrive. Mac can't boot from this too. Reading many threads in some forum i tried with rEEfit. Reefit shows the usb thumbdrive whike booting, but using this will end in a black screen error from bios: "no bootable device....". Tried a knoppix on the usb thukbdrive, too.... No bootable device....
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What more can i do? I tried for 2 evenings now, but nothing worked out for me......
Currently i don't see any any to install win 7 without an internal superdrive, but can this be??
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Kwicks

Internal is definitely the easiest but you can boot from external HD or external optical drive, the mac is just very picky on what works and what doesn't.
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I've been trying recently to take a Dual-Bay Firewire Harddrive unit running a Oxford Semiconductor OXFW911 Chipset. I have two 250GB Hard drives and on one of these I have it Partitioned into 3 partitions. One is my Scratch Partition, one is the Restore of a DVD Install Disc and the last is a "Pre-Installed" version of OSX. I want to be able to boot from the Install DVD partition and the "Pre-Installed" Partition. I have successfully Imaged the Install DVD Partition and was able to boot from that partition once to install OSX on a computer without a DVD drive.
Problem now is that I can't boot from the partition, or I should say, I select it from the Sys Prefs and it will pass the grey screen to a the blue background and just get hung up. It never displays the dialog to select a language to begin the install.
I also can not boot from the Install DVD. It will show up in the Startup Disk in Sys Prefs but always ends up hanging.
I've tried booting using "Option" and it displays my Internal HD and then two icons for the Install DVD Partition on the External FW Drive. Neither one allows for me boot up.
Any ideas for what I may be missing?
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It appears that if the Partition with OSX was installed from anything besides the Restore Disc, the Powerbook won't boot to it.
I think this is ridiculous, and if I've went wrong somewhere, someone please correct me.
Thanks.

Power Mac G4 400 MHz (AGP graphics) will not boot from hard drive

I have a Mac G4 400 MHz (AGP graphics) Machine Model: PowerMac 3.1 CPU Type:PowerPC G4 (2.8)
When I try to boot from the hard drive I get the folder with the flashing question Mark. The Machine will start up from the OSX 10.4 installer disk.
The system was running OSX 10.4.9 fine. I began to have problems with the hard drive, so I replaced it with an old Maxtor 5T040H4 40Gig Apple branded drive that I had sitting around.
The drive is jumpered (r50) for Master/Single.
I erased the drive in the old G4 using disk utility and wrote all zeros. I then used my store bought Tiger 10.4 install disk to install 10.4 on the drive.
After restarting I still get the flashing question mark. If I leave the Install disk in the DVD drive the system will attempt to install again.
I have zapped the PRAM, pressed the CUDA button, removed the battery and let the system sit unplugged for over and hour and it still will not boot from the hard drive.
To test the drive I removed it and put it in a Granite Digital firewire enclosure and connected it to another mac. The drive shows up and the system appears to be installed correctly.
What am I forgetting to do? Does anyone have any suggestions.
Thanks in advance.
Wesley G.

Hi! If Tom's solution doesn't work I would reboot from the install disc and then partition the drive as 1 partition instead of erasing it. Sounds like the driver on the disk is too old and installing a new partition map should write a new driver to the drive that is compatible with Tiger. Other than that it is possible that the drive has a spin delay jumper enabled and the drive isn't spinning up fast enough and the computer isn't looking long enough for the drive. Tom

Emac Will Not Boot From CD

Hi - any help will be greatly appreciated.
I have an eMac G4. My wife was using it when the dreaded spinning ball appeared. She did not know about the force quit procedure and turned the machine off. On reboot the Mac returns almost to where she left it - Question mark > changes to Smiley Mac - spinning ball upper left - clicking noise very faint in Back. CD heard spinning but when holding "C" key will not boot from CD. Using start > Option, CD appears but right arrow returns screen to smiley and spinning ball upper left.
Any idea if she could have mechanically hurt HD when shutting down as ball spun? Why wont the eMac boot up from a bootable CD when holding "C" or option?
Thanks
John B.

Thanks Tom
I've experimented. Reset the PRAM ... reset the PMU. Now I am getting a little different result. The Mac musical sound when booting works (didn't before), but same result.
Interesting notes: The computer does not shut down when shut down using the power key. It is actually in 'sleep' mode because touching any key or moving mouse wakes it up and begins the start-up process.
I attached an external HD with a boot-up disk on it to the eMac and held down 'option' on start-up. Got the correct screen with the OSX CD in tray and HD 120 showing as options. Chose HD, clicked right arrow and got a long kernel panic notice. On re-doing the same, HD did not show at all. OSX CD in tray showed as option but would not highlight. Then I hit return and got a message saying "invalid memory access" with several numbers. Could the memory be corrupted? Bad Ram chip? Should I remove one ram chip and try that?
Thanks for Help.
John

Not booting from 10.4.8 volumes after upgrade from 10.4.7

I'm sorry to report that my aged G4 450 MHz AGP with 4 internal Hard disk drives no longer boots from any of the 2 volumes upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.8 as soon as it was started from another volume!
All was working fine as long as 10.4.7 was installed on the 2 232 GB disks connected to the SIIG ATA133 controller. I could boot from any OS on any of the 4 disks, 5 partitions:
internal ATA66 bus:
18 GB disk, 2 partitions: 'IBM_18GB' with OS 9.2.2 and TechTool Pro's 'eDrive' with 10.4.7
71 GB disk, 1 partition 'IBM_71GB' with OS 9.2.2
PCI SIIG ATA133 controller:
232 GB disk, one partition 'I1232GB' with 10.4.7, now upgraded to 10.4.8 and no longer bootable
232 GB disk, one partition 'I2232GB' with 10.4.7, now upgraded to 10.4.8 and no longer bootable
Now I can only boot from the Mac OS 9.2.2 or the eDrive 10.4.7 partitions.
What I did so far: 'I2232GB' was my main OS X startup volume, 'I1232GB' contains a clone of it, plus additional folders like software base and backups.
After upgrading 'I2232GB' to Mac OS X 10.4.8 through Software Update and repairing permissions all was OK as long as the Mac was just shut down or re-started: it always booted up in Mac OS X 10.4.8 from 'I2232GB' without any problems.
The next day I booted from 'I1232GB' to do the same there.
Afterwards I could no longer boot in Mac OS X 10.4.8 from 'I2232GB' nor in in Mac OS X 10.4.8 from 'I1232GB': it just gets to the grey screen with the Apple logo, but the round circle underneath indicating some progress never appears. I left it there for hours: it just hangs.
With the Option key held at startup I could boot from the other partitions with Mac OS 9.2.2 or the eDrive with 10.4.7. None of their Startup Control Panels was able to get me back to 10.2.8!
So I booted from the TechTool Pro 4.5.1 DVD to Optimize both volumes, 'I1232GB' & 'I2232GB', always Files only.
Then I booted from the DiskWorrior 3.0.3 CD to rebuild the directories of both volumes, 'I1232GB' & 'I2232GB'.
Still I can not boot from either 'I1232GB' or 'I2232GB' in Mac OS X 10.2.8!
Downloaded the Mac OS X 10.2.8 Compo Update (for PPC) and installed it onto both 'I1232GB' & 'I2232GB' while booted from the eDrive which I keep on Mac OS X 10.4.7 - no luck either, still I can not boot from either 'I1232GB' or 'I2232GB' in Mac OS X 10.2.8!
Then I backed up the users folder from 'I2232GB' onto 'I1232GB', booted from Mac OS 9.2.2 and used Intech's Hard Disk Speedtools 3.6 to format 'I2232GB', afterwards initialized it with Alsoft's Plus Maximizer Extension for a Block Size of 512 Bytes.
Installed Mac OS X 10.4 from DVD, as well as iLive '06 and upgraded everything to the latest releases with Software Update. All was working fine with all the required reboots until another startup volume was chosen: afterwards again I can no longer boot back into Mac OS X 10.2.8 on the fresch installed 'I2232GB'!
Any help would be appreciated.
Here is some information found by System Profiler from Mac OS X 10.4.7, eDrive, let me know if you need more:
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics)
Machine Model: PowerMac3,1
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.8)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 450 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.2.8f1
Serial Number: XA00715VHSF
Sales Order Number: M7628LL/A
ATA Bus:
IBM-DPTA-372050:
Capacity: 19.12 GB
Model: IBM-DPTA-372050
Volumes:
IBM_18GB:
Capacity: 13.12 GB
Available: 6.96 GB
eDrive:
Capacity: 6 GB
Available: 3.03 GB
IBM-DTLA-307075:
Capacity: 71.59 GB
Model: IBM-DTLA-307075
Volumes:
IBM_71GB:
Capacity: 71.59 GB
Available: 39.65 GB
ATA Bus:
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D:
Model: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D
Firmware Revision: 1.21
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2000 KB
IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATAPI:
Model: IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATAPI
ACARD,6880M:
Name: ACARD,6880M
Type: scsi
Bus: PCI
Slot: SLOT-C
Vendor ID: 0x1191
Device ID: 0x0009
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1191
Subsystem ID: 0x0009
Revision ID: 0x0003
SCSI Parallel Domain 65536:
Initiator Identifier: 7
ATA HDT722525DLAT80:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Manufacturer: ATA
Model: HDT722525DLAT80
Revision:
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: Yes
SCSI Target Identifier: 0
SCSI Logical Unit Identifier: 0
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
I1232GB:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Available: 14.1 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/I1232GB
ATA HDT722525DLAT80:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Manufacturer: ATA
Model: HDT722525DLAT80
Revision:
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk3
OS9 Drivers: Yes
SCSI Target Identifier: 2
SCSI Logical Unit Identifier: 0
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
I2232GB:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Available: 180.11 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk3s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/I2232GB
The RAM consists of 4 identical modules and is about 1 year old:
DIMM0/J21 to DIMM3/J24:
Size: 512 MB
Type: SDRAM
Speed: PC133-333
Status: OK
Many thanks for your help!
Josef
Apple G4 AGP Mac OS X (10.4.8) 4 internal hard disks, dual layer DVD-RW, 2GB RAM

What I did so far: 'I2232GB' was my main OS X
startup volume, 'I1232GB' contains a clone of it,
plus additional folders like software base and
backups.
After upgrading 'I2232GB' to Mac OS X 10.4.8
through Software Update and repairing permissions all
was OK as long as the Mac was just shut down or
re-started: it always booted up in Mac OS X 10.4.8
from 'I2232GB' without any problems.
The next day I booted from 'I1232GB' to do the same
there.
Afterwards I could no longer boot in Mac OS X 10.4.8
from 'I2232GB' nor in in Mac OS X 10.4.8 from
'I1232GB': it just gets to the grey screen with the
Apple logo, but the round circle underneath
indicating some progress never appears. I left it
there for hours: it just hangs.
With the Option key held at startup I could boot from
the other partitions with Mac OS 9.2.2 or the eDrive
with 10.4.7. None of their Startup Control Panels was
able to get me back to 10.4.8!
So I booted from the TechTool Pro 4.5.1 DVD to
Optimize both volumes, 'I1232GB' & 'I2232GB',
always Files only.
Then I booted from the DiskWorrior 3.0.3 CD to
rebuild the directories of both volumes, 'I1232GB'
& 'I2232GB'.
Still I can not boot from either 'I1232GB' or
'I2232GB' in Mac OS X 10.4.8!
Downloaded the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Compo Update (for PPC)
and installed it onto both 'I1232GB' & 'I2232GB'
while booted from the eDrive which I keep on Mac OS X
10.4.7 - no luck either, still I can not boot from
either 'I1232GB' or 'I2232GB' in Mac OS X
10.4.8!
Then I backed up the users folder from 'I2232GB'
onto 'I1232GB', booted from Mac OS 9.2.2 and used
Intech's Hard Disk Speedtools 3.6 to format
'I2232GB', afterwards initialized it with Alsoft's
Plus Maximizer Extension for a Block Size of 512
Bytes.
Installed Mac OS X 10.4 from DVD, as well as iLive
'06 and upgraded everything to the latest releases
with Software Update. All was working fine with all
the required reboots until another startup volume was
chosen: afterwards again I can no longer boot back
into Mac OS X 10.4.8 on the fresch installed
'I2232GB'!
I found several typos in above post, wherever it was 10.2.8 it should have read 10.4.8 - I'm very sorry for confusing you, this would not have made sense, but I found no way to edit the existing text therefore I modified the quote of it here.
I do not need Mac OS X 10.2.8 back, but it would be nice to boot back in Mac OS X 10.4.8 from another volume as the current one - which was working fine before with Mac OS X 10.4.7.
Many thanks,
Josef

Mid-2009 MacBook Pro sees internal SATA hard drive, but will not boot from or format

I inherited a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53 GHz model) with a very strange issue.
It first presented itself as not being able to boot from the internal SATA hard drive that came with the computer. Nothing I tried could get it to boot, so I assumed the file system was corrupted beyond repair and booted from a CD to try to format the drive. Disk Utility on the CD would not format the drive, giving me strange error messages like "Unable to write to the last block of the device".
At this point I figured the drive itself must be toast, so I pulled it out and put another known-good SATA hard drive in, booted from CD, and attempted to format. Again, same error messages and an unsuccesful format.
So I had the bright idea of formatting one of the drives in an external enclosure and then putting it in the MBP to see if OS X would even install. No dice. Get a cryptic error message before installation even begins.
So I installed OS X on the drive in the external enclosure and put it in the MBP, and it attempts to boot, but never goes anywhere.
So to sum up, the symptoms I'm seeing:
MacBook Pro CAN see internal SATA hard drives.
MacBook Pro WILL NOT boot from any internal SATA hard drive and cannot format or install OS X to any internal SATA hard drive.
MacBook Pro WILL boot from any CD or external device and seems to work properly otherwise.
At this point I'm thinking it's one of two things: the hard drive ribbon cable or the SATA controller on the logic board.
Since the MacBook Pro seems to work completely fine other than this one issue, and will boot properly from both external devices and the CD (also a SATA device), I'm thinking and hoping that it's just the hard drive ribbon cable. From my searches online, I've heard that this batch of MacBook Pros is known to have issues with the hard drive ribbon cable, but it seems in most cases this manifests itself by the Mac not being able to see a drive at all.
I've done quite a bit of troubleshooting to get to this point, but right now I'm just looking for any feedback at all. Specifically I'd love to know a way I can easily test to see whether it's the logic board or the cable.

UPDATE: An interesting development!
I just tried a third known-good SATA hard drive, one which I believe supports SATA I only (but I'm not sure), and unlike the other drives that the Mac sees but cannot properly interact with, the Mac can't even see this one when I put it inside.
Frustrating as this may be, I believe I'm actually getting closer to a solution since my symptoms now appear to be closely aligned with people having SATA ribbon cable issues.
Onward!

Wallstreet not booting from OSX CDs

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