Hard Drive not being recognized

[soxrguy]

I have a B+W G3, 400mHz, with 512 mb of memory, 9gb hard drive, singly partitioned, that was running OS 10.3.9. My problem arose when I tried to run an application that only ran in a Classic (OS 9) environment, which I didn’t have installed. I tried to instal by placing the OS 9.2.1 disk into my machine. I first tried to run OS from the cd, but since the cd couldn’t be written to it wouldn’t allow me to run OS 9 this way. So I dragged the system folder from the OS 9 cd to my hard drive. The folder copied over ok, but this is where the problems started. I decided a restart was appropriate. Upon trying to restart I first got the blinking Mac folder with a question mark, then it progressed to a disk with a blinking question mark. My computer would load if I put the OS 9 disk in, but then my hard drive was not recognized. I tried to run Disk First Aid, but it did not acknowledge my hard drive. Upon opening Drive Setup, it saw the drive, but it was unrecognized and wouldn’t mount, but could be initialized. I tried to boot from an OS X cd and and the disk with a blinking question mark remained. My machine would boot from the DiskWarrior 3.0.2 cd and it recognized my drive and didn’t find any major changes. Also, I booted from my TechTool Pro 4.0.1 cd and it saw the hard drive and didn’t find any major problems. After trying both of these my machine still would just get to the disk with the blinking question mark. I have tried to hook up an external drive with both systems 9 and 10 on it and my machine would only load system 9 and failed to recognize the os x partition on that hard drive. ANY IDEAS?

 

[rickvanr]

Is it rev a or b? You could try zapping the pram (option, apple, p and r?) or (control, apple, p and r?) upon start-up. Try holding just 'option' during startup. Also, look for the newest firmware update. Oh, and copying the system folder straight from the CD will almost never work.

 

[soxrguy]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried holding option at startup and got the same results as well, the mac folder with a blinking question mark, followed by a disk with a blinking question mark.

Rev a vs rev b, wasn't this just with the iMacs? As for firmware I need to do a little searching to find what would be necessary, but then my problem is how will I install it if I can't get past the blinking disk with question mark.

I tried zapping both the PRAM (cmd-opt-P-R) and reseting the nvram (cmd-opt-o-f, reset-nvram, set-default, reset-all). Unfortunately, I ended up with the mac folder with blinking question mark, followed by the disk with blinking question mark.

I tried holding down X while booting and got the same results, the mac folder with a blinking question mark, followed by a disk with a blinking question mark. I put in my OS 10.3 cd and nothing happened except the disk with a blinking question mark.

I tried starting up from my 10.3 cd while holding down X while booting and I got the same results.

 

[spinne1]

Have you tried starting up from your 10.3 cd while holding down C? If it works, open up the startup drive selector (it is one of the menus when you get to page about "ready to install" (or something like that)), and select your os X.3 folder as your startup folder and then hit the restart button. It should restart properly from there. As to getting OS 9 on there, a folder called "classic" should have installed with 0S X.3 if I am not mistaken. You then would go to "classic" in system preferences and tell the computer what folder to use as your classic startup folder ("classic" in this case).

Good luck and report how it goes.