PM 7600/132 HD issues.

[Solvalou]

So I've gotten all my old Mac's to a point where I'm happy (at least the ones that are working). All but one machine remains, my 7600.

This one is (or was) a bit of a beast. Loaded with a Crescendo G4 450/1M and half a GB of RAM, this thing used to fly. Or so I remember. I'm pretty sure this used to  boot and work fine but after getting it out of storage, all I get now is a flashing question disk.

I tried all manor of SCSI drives, boot disks, booting from CD (at least trying to anyway), playing with jumpers, you name it I probably tried some kind of configuration.

Sometimes I got it to start booting from an older OS install only to crash (68K HD install so that's probably why), and other times it just sticks on a grey screen with a cursor. Most times though, it just has the flashing question mark disk.

Refuses to boot from CD (holding C or Option and/or Command + C and D and all configurations of that does nothing).

I've gotten a System 7.5.3 disk tools to boot and see some of the drives but none are "supported". Probably because it's not patched to accept non Apple drives. 

Pressing the CUDA (while unpowered) does nothing either.

So I'm pretty much at my wit's end and short of chucking it in the rain out of sheer frustration, I figured you guys are the best guys to speak to.

I had plans to upgrade the graphics card and install a Sonnet ATA card to save the SCSI drive(s) for other machines, but if I can't even get it to boot, I'm not even sure how I can even begin to make progress on this. 

If it's getting to the flashing question disk and (sometimes) attempting to boot, surely the Sonnet card is not to blame, is it?

 

[Solvalou]

Well after some hair-pulling I finally managed to get the Sonnet IDE working and booting.

I currently have OS 9.1 Installed, which as many of you probably know, is the last OS natively supported OS for "old world" Mac's.

Ideally since it has a Radeon card installed, I'd like to use the proper drivers for that, which means I need 9.2.1 or 9.2.2.

I got OS9 helper and after some more hair-loss, I managed to get it to play ball with an OS 9.2.1 disk image. Well, to point. 

You see, I keep getting the error message: "This version of Mac OS can not be installed over the localized version of Mac OS on the disk named..." (Etc.) "Please choose a different destination disk, or perform a clean installation.".

I thought it had to be booted through boot disk first.

So I first tried the latest floppy boot disk I have (7.5.3) but I get an error when using the helper. Then the 9.1 disc and the helper doesn't even start. 

So I then put a bare-bones 9.1 on a slave drive and booted into that and I still get the same error.

I've also tried all combinations of destination drives both on the helper and the installation options.

What exactly is it asking for? Am I missing something here? 

I can't perform a "clean installation" because I wouldn't have the helper to bypass whatever it is that stops post 9.1 OS' on "old world Mac's".

 

[jessenator]

Strange. I somehow have 9.2 on my beige MT but I'm trying to scratch my brain on if I installed it pre- or post-sonnet 500 ZIF upgrade, though I don't see how that would matter.

So do you have the 9.2.1 disc burned or just the image? I've never used the Helper before so I'm not familiar with that procedure.

I want to say I used my iBook G3 restore CD on my minitower—I also own a 9.2.1 retail CDso it might've been that... but I was able to instal without issue directly from the booted CD.

Don't know if the ROM version has bearing here, but it sure did with mac OS 8.1 installation. I went through maybe 4 install imaged burned as discs before one worked.

Anyway, if you'd like a copy of either to try, let me know.

 

[LaPorta]

Why not stick with 9.1 and save the headache?

 

[ArmorAlley]

Why not stick with 9.1 and save the headache?

I agree. Is the Radeon 9200 card the only reason you want Mac OS 9.2.2?

The Radeon Mac Edition is a good card and the Radeon 7000 isn't bad either. These will run under System 7.6, if I remember correctly.

You may have a processor from the year 2000 but you also have a bus from the year 1996 and this will act as a throttle if you are passing too much data through it.

Mac OS 9.1 is grand, and unless you want to make use of AltiVec, I'd even put Mac OS 8.6 on that machine. For many pieces of software, the version of CarbonLib is more important. Find the 1.6 installer (or the 1.6.1 file on Macintosh Garden somewhere).

You'll get a performance boost out of a SATA PCI card and an SSD card. Your system will run less hot too. If you have 512MB RAM and you aren't surfing the web with Classilla, I'd also consider a 256MB RAM disk for a performance boost.

 

[Solvalou]

Strange. I somehow have 9.2 on my beige MT but I'm trying to scratch my brain on if I installed it pre- or post-sonnet 500 ZIF upgrade, though I don't see how that would matter.

So do you have the 9.2.1 disc burned or just the image? I've never used the Helper before so I'm not familiar with that procedure.

I want to say I used my iBook G3 restore CD on my minitower—I also own a 9.2.1 retail CDso it might've been that... but I was able to instal without issue directly from the booted CD.

Don't know if the ROM version has bearing here, but it sure did with mac OS 8.1 installation. I went through maybe 4 install imaged burned as discs before one worked.

Anyway, if you'd like a copy of either to try, let me know.

I got both, when using the CD the helper comes up with an error something about "O'Hare". I'll get back to you on that error. Maybe it's a bad burned disc.

I just figured an image would eliminate the chance of burnage issues.

I can't imagine the ROM being an issue. I know for a fact this had OS 9.2.2 in the past, but the old SCSI drives it had back thrn lost their data. 

I might take you up on that offer though, thanks!

Why not stick with 9.1 and save the headache?

Because I'd really like to make use of the 3D support for the ATi drivers, that and other softwares that support the absolute tail-end of OS9.

That and I remember 9.2.2 running nicely on this. Although 9.1 also seems to work well too to be fair, but I digress.

I agree. Is the Radeon 9200 card the only reason you want Mac OS 9.2.2?

The Radeon Mac Edition is a good card and the Radeon 7000 isn't bad either. These will run under System 7.6, if I remember correctly.

You may have a processor from the year 2000 but you also have a bus from the year 1996 and this will act as a throttle if you are passing too much data through it.

Mac OS 9.1 is grand, and unless you want to make use of AltiVec, I'd even put Mac OS 8.6 on that machine. For many pieces of software, the version of CarbonLib is more important. Find the 1.6 installer (or the 1.6.1 file on Macintosh Garden somewhere).

You'll get a performance boost out of a SATA PCI card and an SSD card. Your system will run less hot too. If you have 512MB RAM and you aren't surfing the web with Classilla, I'd also consider a 256MB RAM disk for a performance boost.

Mostly yes, the drivers are fare more supported and flexible on 9.2.x. I do I tend on getting a 9200 someday when I can score one at a reasonable price.

Can you get SATA cards that work for this machine?! I had no idea! Though I can't imagine they would be easy to find.

The bottleneck I already knew about, but that's part of the fun, trying to get far more modern hardware working on a vintage platform, at least to.em anyway. Hell, if I really wanted I could have opted to put it in a 9600 (which I had many years ago), but I thought it would be more amusing seeing a G4 in the lowest 7x00 series. 

The access speeds on the modern IDE's installed aren't an issue, as they both have cache and are 7200 RPM. Being that the norm in the day would have had barely any cache and 5400 RPM. For that reason, I'm not too fussed about making a RAM disk. Plus it seems a little more brisk than the on-board SCSI that it had previously.