LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Butt Sniffer Joined: 09 Nov 2000 Posts: 1883

Yeah, so I have had the good fortune, or maybe misfortune depending on who I talk to, to inherit an iMAC 233 when it's previous owner said to hell with it and bought a PC, much celebration was had. I've never owned a MAC before, about the only thing I have ever done with one is set up the internet connection or, many years ago, play the greatest game ever made, Oregon Trail, but I digress, so on to the problem at hand.

It OS 8.1 on it, but I have got OS 8.5 and an OS 8.6 update and a 20Gb HD that is doing nothing, so i am thinking throw the 20 in there and load 8.5 clean and upgrade to 8,6. I like clean fresh loaded computers. Anyway, I put the 20 in the machine boot it and get a grey screen with a floppy icon and a question mark on it. What is this? Google is not as helpful as it is with a PC so I am kinda lost, and by kinda I mean "stuck on some island with a knife wielding ex-parapalegic and a giant monster". Was going to say the hell with it and clone the lil 4gb to the 20 and just do it that way but Driver Image, Ghost, Partition Magic, none of them programs will even see a partition on the drive much less clone it, so again I am lost. Only have the one iMAC, all my other PC's are Windows based systems.

Any help or linkage in the right direction would be GREATLY appreciated.

Cheers

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 7:08 pm Post subject:

a place to start would be http://www.macfixit.com/

I've found them very helpful.........I'm wondering if your hard drive is supported in MAC 8.5 if that has a G3 you could go to 9 or even OS X

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:11 pm Post subject:

Not that I know much about mac, but I'm pretty sure that floppy icon with a ? mark means that it can't find anything to boot from. If you just put in the 20GB drive and took out the other one, then theres nothing from it to boot from. You need some sort of boot floppy or disk or something (iMac don't have floppies do they?)
Anyways, thats about all I know about that. I stick with the superior computers, PC's Razz

Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 12:51 am Post subject:

Quote:

Anyways, thats about all I know about that. I stick with the superior computers, PC's

then why are you posting in the Mac topic?

Anyway, to answer the post, I am assuming this is one of the "blueberry" iMacs which is definitely a G3, 233MHz. Your iMac is equipped with a CD in the front, and it should also have a Firewire port and two USB ports on the right side, as well as built in sound. Your memory slot is located in the bottom of the unit, should you want to add more memory - they do benefit from more memory. You can easily upgrade to either OS 9.1 or 9.2 which is a much better version than 8.x.

The "[?]" blinking does indeed mean the iMac can't find a system folder to boot from. You can boot from a CD by holding down the C key right after the boot chime, and leave it pressed until you get the "happy mac" boot indicator. This should fire up the OS Install provided you have put the install disk in the CD.

With enough memory, this iMac should run OSX just fine, albeit a bit slowly. Sticking with OS9, there is plenty, and I do mean plenty, of great software available. I have always found my Macs to be more stable than my Windows machines; besides my linux/FreeBSD machines, the Macs are the most stable machines in the house.

Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:11 pm Post subject:

EdisonRex wrote:
Quote:

Anyways, thats about all I know about that. I stick with the superior computers, PC's

then why are you posting in the Mac topic?
.....
The "[?]" blinking does indeed mean the iMac can't find a system folder to boot from.

Because I knew at least that much, it couldn't find the boot disk. I figured it would give him something more to work with.