Ah, my first post in this forum...
So I inherited a Workgroup Server 9150 and a Network Server 700 from a guy who was closing up shop (I was more interested in the SparcStations he was giving away, but he offered the Apples up with 'em). The Network Server boots up to OpenFirmware, but as I haven't had an ADB keyboard up until now there wasn't much I could do.
As for the Workgroup Server, I plug in the keyboard and mouse, my VGA monitor (the computer came with an adapter) and turn the key to on (not lock, just on). I punch the power button on the keyboard and it gives me a chime, then boots up into the "Welcome to Macintosh" screen with the happy mac graphic below it... This is as far as I can boot the computer. I've also tried to boot an OS 9.1 cd I got a hold of but after trying to hold C and Cmd-Opt-Shift-Del as well I can't seem to get it to boot (it also goes to Welcome to Mac and gets stuck).
The CD could be bad, as I burned it from a toast image (just renamed it to ISO). I checked the CD with HFVExplorer and it comes up as an HFS file system and seems to have everything needed to boot.
As this is my first real experience troubleshooting a Mac (the only other Mac I've played with is an old SE/30 my aunt had) I'm not quite sure where to start. Anybody have any suggestions?
I thought they used Apple's Version of Unix?
You might want to see if someone on the forums have discs for recovery that you can buy.
Hey,
The 9150 didn't ship with AIX. Don't think it ran it at all. And it should boot OS 9.1. So the problem is elsewhere. Have you zapped the pram? Hit the power button and then hold down the apple key, command key and the P and R keys. Let the Mac chime four or five times and then let go of the keys. All you probably need is a new pram battery.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Try holding down the spacebar when booting, and see it it helps. Probably won't, but it's about as good a thing to try as zapping the PRAM.
--Peace
Do you know for sure the boot hard drive is the one that was in use with the system?
There's also the option of booting and holding down the shift key as soon as you see a grey screen. This bypasses attempting to load extensions, and it's possible there's an early-loader that's killing the boot process.
I can't remember if there's a maximum OS version that machine is capable of booting.
Alright guys, thanks for the suggestions. I'll try disabling the extensions first, sounds kindof like safe mode in Windows, right?
After that I'll try clearing the pram. I have a vague idea what that would accomplish but can anybody clue me in on what exactly that does?
Yeah, I've been living in a PC world for about 13 years now (since second grade). In that time I've been a Windows and Linux/BSD user and focused on PCs and ethernet networking. I'm just starting to get into the Mac scene, including these couple boxes I picked up and experimenting with the OSX86 project.
Oh, and just from what I know, the Workgroup servers came with MacOS installed, with a few extra things for light file sharing and other serving duties. The network server was a short production (less than a year I believe) heavy duty server (7 hot-swappable bays, dual redundant power supplies, RAID, etc...) that came with IBM AIX and will not run MacOS due to it's specialized firmware (although there are rumors that it can be done). A/UX (Apple's version of Unix topped with the finder) only ran on the 68k based Macs and was never ported to PowerPC.
Oh, and I think the maximum OS version the 9150 will run is OS9.1 (at least according to AppleHistory)
Alright guys, thanks for the suggestions. I'll try disabling the extensions first, sounds kindof like safe mode in Windows, right?
Not exactly. The poster suggested that thinking that an extensions conflict was the source of the booting problem. Basic Mac trouble shooting.
After that I'll try clearing the pram. I have a vague idea what that would accomplish but can anybody clue me in on what exactly that does?
It resets the preferences for the monitor and various things to factory spec. Another basic Mac trouble shooting move.
Oh, and I think the maximum OS version the 9150 will run is OS9.1 (at least according to AppleHistory)
Yes, as I noted in my previous post. I'm still betting that all you need is a pram battery but try everything else first.
Good luck,
William
www.williamahearn.com
Well I tried hold the spacebar (and holding shift, both were suggested) to bypass extensions at bootup but that didn't work. Clearing the pram didn't seem to help either...
Does it help that I've noticed that the Welcome to Macintosh box is flickering? It might just be my VGA monitor or the adapter, but I figured I would mention that just in case.
Any suggestions on why the CD I burnt for OS9.1 wouldn't boot? It might be because of the way I burnt in in Windows, so does anybody have a surefire method of burning toast images in Windows? Or heck, it might just be the wrong key combos.
Thanks for the help so far!
[Edit] Oh, and as for the pram battery I'll see if I can find a service manual for this box and see if I can replace it, just in case.
[Edit x2] Well after $16 at Radio Shack I sure hope the pram battery is the little 3.6v 1/2AA battery. I'll wait for a reply here before I open it.
Toast is it's own format. You will need to burn it either with toast, or get an ISO image of it
If you have access to an OS X machine, you can take the disc, rip it as .cdr and change it to .iso (apple's .cdr is ISO) then put it on a machine with a burner. You can also do it in OS 9, but I don't think it will be and ISO
Alright, I'll see if I can gain access to a Mac, probably at the college. I saw somewhere on the internet that somebody burned the .toast file as an ISO and it worked, but I'll do it the correct way and see if that works.
Now to replace that little 1/2 AA 3.6v battery, hopefully that's the only one this box takes.
Thanks
Hey,
If you don't where that box has been and you're having trouble with it, the best thing to do (since you have to go inside anyway) is to trouble shoot it bit by bit. So . . . when you go inside to replace the battery, disable the hard drive. You can do this by either pulling the power plug or the data ribbon. You can disable the floppy drive the same way. So, when the battery goes in, all that will work will be the motherboard. The correct response from the mac is a blinking "?" on startup. That's good. It's saying "where's my brain." Reconnect the floppy. Should be the same response. Reconnect the hard drives, see if it boots. If it does boot, then you know there's problems with the burnt CD or the CD-ROM. It's possible (but unlikely) that you have a SCSI conflict. But first, find out what works and what doesn't.
And, yes, that's the right battery at the ratshack price.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Good deal, I was just in the middle of doing that, figured it might react if nothing was plugged in, now that I know that for sure I'll keep going ahead with it. Thanks!
Alright, while I was taking this apart on the inside I noticed the AppleCD 600i this computer came with had an odd jumper configuration. I'll draw it out...
There are jumpers on Parity, IDs 0 and 1, and Term Power. Would the fact that there are jumpers on both ID 0 and 1 mess things up, or is this how it came from the factory. And just for a reference while setting up the IDs of the other SCSI drives what ID would this set the CD drive to?
Thanks!
[Edit] Unfortunately using the [code] block doesn't set that block of text to fixed-width... Bah!
[Edit x2] I just realized that these are the SCSI set bits... 0 and 1 blocked off mean it's at ID 3... Way to go for answering my own question... Now will a Mac boot from a cd without having a hard drive?
[Edit x3] Wow, I think I just answered my question again. I booted with no hard drives plugged in, just the floppy cd and tape drives, and put the OS9 CD I burned into the drive and the computer booted up with the happy mac and seems to be reading the cd... I don't know how long that takes but I'll post again if it works/doesn't work.
One more question... The button above the reset button, kinda looks like a circle with a down arrow, brings up a console, what is it possible to do in this console?
Pretty sure thats openfirmware, haven't played with those old machines in a while, but I think I have the same machine sitting at home. Also, have you tried to get the ANS700 running? That is one machine worth holding onto for a while.
The ANS700 I'm going to be working on next, it's really a pretty impressive machine and I can't wait to get working on it. The specimen I got is actually fully loaded with both power supplies, 4 hard drives, and full memory/L2 cache. Niiiice :D. I'll probably try to install NetBSD on it, as that's probably the closest thing to AIX without being AIX ;).
On a good note, I think the reason the workgroup server would not boot is the main hard drive (there's actually three in this thing) didn't have a jumper cable attached to it. I ended up attaching that and the sucker booted right into OS9.1 (I don't even have to reinstall!). Thank god that project's over, besides for attempting to hook up the rest of the hard drives and get the servers running (just looking at it right now it has FileMaker Server 5 on it).
Next project... The ANS 700... I'll be sure to take some pictures of both of these machines for y'all to appreciate.
dan k
The ANS (Apple Network Server) is, architecturally, very similar to a Power Mac 9500. It uses the same memory controller, memory-to-PCI bridge (AKA PCI controller), interrupt handler and IO collector.
The main differences are in the Memory Data Path chips (parity support added), the configuration of the PCI busses, and the firmware.
The PM9500 has two PCI busses. Bus one has four devices on it. The first is the Grand Central chip, which collects I/O from the motherboard devices and also handles interrupts and feeds them to the CPU. The other three are PCI slots. Bus two simply has three PCI slots.
The ANS also has two PCI busses. However, the first one has six devices on it. It also has the Grand Central chip. Plus it has a PCI based video chip (ANS's built-in video), two F & W SCSI chips, and two PCI slots. The second PCI bus has four PCI slots.
The assignment (wiring) of interrupts from the various PCI devices to the interrupt handling chip (Grand Central) is arranged different for the ANS than it is for the PM9500.
In these Apple machines, each PCI device has a single, unique (unshared) interrupt. Each interrupt is supplied at a pin on Grand Central.
Which brings us to the firmware. The Macintosh ToolBox is missing from the ANS firmware. The ToolBox is sort of like the interface API on ROM. However, experiments in booting the ANS with Mac OS have usually turned on installing a Mac 9500 ROM which includes the toolbox routines.
The real obstacle to this kind of booting of the ANS into the Mac OS is that the interrupt mapping is different from the 9500. The 9500 ROM is telling the ANS that certain interrupts are connected to the Bandit chips, or the PCI slots, and they're actually connected to the built-in video or SCSI chips, and at some point in the boot process this becomes fatal.
Rumor has it that Apple did produce a ROM for the ANS with the Macintosh ToolBox included. It wouldn't have been terribly difficult, I would think. If you've got the source code for the 9500, it would probably just be a matter of getting the bits of code referencing the interrupts arranged properly. Oh and add drivers for the video and SCSI chips. And one or more ANS users have claimed to have lucked into this ROM. However, I am unconvinced.
I have the ability to reproduce the ANS ROM given the code (appropriate circuit board and flash chips to be attached). If such a ROM existed I would really like to get a dump of its contents. But the folks who make those claims always clam up at any mention of sharing the contents. So, either they relish being the only one with a copy, or they don't actually have what they say they do.