hello everyone! i'm new to the mac world and dont really know what i'm doing so bear with me on this one! ok.....1. i have a rev a imac that seems to have trouble with its ethernet port(so i think) i have cox hsi and my machine will not install the modem drivers, it says "the program that created this file cannot be found" and of course i have no idea what that means. so i cannot get online with the thing.
2. when i bought this machine about 2 months ago it had os 10.1 installed and since my machine only had 60 or so mg of ram i could not run most of my programs. so i tried to boot os 9 which i thought was on there and instead it boot 8.6!! weird huh!? and i have no idea where os x went. could someone please help me?? i would gladly appreciate it! thanks!
reekee
crappy bondi blue imac
February 3, 2005 - 10:43am
#1
crappy bondi blue imac
go to the apple menu in the upper left hand corner of the screen. click it and scroll down to the control panels. click that. now scroll until you see startup disk. click that. now youll see the drive and a little sideways arrow to the left of it. click that and click on the folder that says os x 10.1 and hit restart.
ok, well today i went and bought a new pram battery because that imac is one of the first ones made... put it in, put the thing back together, and now it wont even start up. it keeps flashing the question mark on the folder, even after i reseted the pram about 15 times. i dunno know what to do. i thought about replacing the hd but the only os i have is 7.5..
reekee
Set fire to it and buy a G3 Yosemite, as it's not worth trying to run X on a trayload imac. I know this because I did it and ended up spending over 100 bucks on bringing it up to scratch (just), and then found out that I'd be up for another $85 to put another 256mb of RAM in it (which it needed in order to run multiple apps under X acceptably). Figuring that continuing to upgrade an imac would kill me, I ended up buying a G3 off ebay for $180 and it kicks the imac's ass on every level. However if you insist on still using the imac, try holoding down *option* on startup to (possibly) bring up a choice of bootable system folders on-screen, or press *Command(pretzel)* and *X* simultaneously, which should force the computer to boot into X. Still, keep in mind that X.1 is slower than X.2 or X.3, and it is generally accepted that you should have at least 256Mb of RAM to run any version of X, preferably 384Mb for X.2 or X.3. Good luck!
Check to see if you accidently loosened the HD cable.
lol, those revision a imacs are hecka hard to open up. The last time i opened mine, i had 4 screws left over when I was finished.
hell yeah they are! i've cut my fingers so much trying to fix the darn thing. i just thought it was odd that it booted 8.6 which i didn't think was on there. i'm thinking about getting a blueberry rev d and using my old one for spare parts. i'm just sad to see it die
it was my first mac... thanks for ur guy's help!
reekee
Did you try resetting the CUDA? The good news is that i've heard that this can magically solve a number of problems. The bad news is that it means that you will need to open it up once more. It's the little red button located somewhere on the logic board. It should only be pressed once, otherwise it'll drain the PRAM batt.
yeah i did, but i pressed it alot. so im gonna go buy a higher voltage battery & see if that would help. i'm thinking its the hd since i cant even hear it clicking or anything. i remember it was quite noisey when it ran x. i dunno
reekee
putting in a higher voltage battery could be potentially damaging! Google say that iMac batts are 3.6v 1/2 AA.
I used to have the ?-in-folder problem. When I booted it off CD, all the data was stil there, but the system files apparently got corrupted. Strange. I didn't notice any HD activity at the question mark screen, so I would assume that's normal.
Do you have a known good HD with sys 8.6 or above? That's the lowest system it will run. Try swapping the HDs.
unfortunitly i dont, it's pretty much my only mac desktop, my others are all powerbooks. could i just buy a new hd and os and install it normally..kinda like how you would on a pc? thanks
reekee
The HD already in it should still work. You just need system 8.6 or higher. I don't recommend OSX on a Rev. A, though. I tried it on mine, and it ran too slow for my liking. The best system to run is probably 9.2.
cool. but the only os i have is 7.5. and i couldn't get it to boot that either. i dunno whats going on with it.
reekee
The oldest supported OS on that iMac is either the 'special' OS 8.1 or 8.6. This means that you have a 0% chance of starting it up with an OS 7 CD. Don't think there's something wrong with it until you've tried booting a usable OS CD.
Thought that might help.
well no wonder it wasn't working! but like i said, i'm new to the mac world. guess i should stop smacking it around and get a os 9 cd from somewhere. ya'll know anywhere thats cheap besides ebay? thanks!
reekee
I have some spare OS 9.2 system restore cds for iMac. I can send you one for $20 shipped, if you'd like.
cool. my email is ericsimpson20@yahoo.com. just email me the details and i'll get back to you. thanks
reekee