eMac Trouble

[ScottB]

I got a eMac recently, but there's a problem.

1. There's a unbootable version of OS X on it (it Kernel Panics on boot)



2. It has no Optical Drive (no duh)


 

3. When I plug in a USB Optical Drive, the eMac won't boot from it

4. The OPTION menu has the cursor stuck on loading forever (been sitting there waiting for over an hour)

5. There are two OS X partitions?



Any help?

 

[belgaonkar]

Typical rule of thumb is that PowerPC Macs cannot boot from a USB. There is a work around but it's dog slow. If you have another PPC Mac, you could connect it via Firewire and clone the hard drive from the working PPC Mac to the eMac.

EDIT: Also noticed you mentioned it has no optical drive. The eMac has an optical drive, but has yours been removed? The flap folds down and reveals the tray loading drive.

 

[ScottB]

I'm a fucking idiot.

EDIT: Also noticed you mentioned it has no optical drive. The eMac has an optical drive, but has yours been removed? The flap folds down and reveals the tray loading drive.

But, I've gotten somewhere. The External Optical Drive causes the freeze on the OPTION menu, so with that, I was able to boot to Nirvana Soup to the user "user" with the password "password'. Super secure.

But anyway, why it Kernel Panics is because eDrive (the partition it boots to) does not have a library folder, hence the crash.

So, now I get to put the disk in the drive that I didn't notice *facepalm*

EDIT: I also just remembered, I was able to get my iMac G3 to boot from a USB optical drive before. What?

 

[ScottB]

People use these as house heaters, don't they? I'm seriously sweating a lot rn.

 

[ScottB]

 

[belgaonkar]

There ya go!

 

[ScottB]

Someone lock and delete this.

 

[just.in.time]

I've booted an iBook G3 clamshell from a USB drive before as well. I think a handful of models had support for it. But it is slowwwwww. At least on the clamshell with USB 1.1.

 

[360alaska]

Many of those emacs require recap or they will kernel Panic constantly.

 

[ScottB]

Many of those emacs require recap or they will kernel Panic constantly.

Not in my case.

The problem here was that there was a Recovery Partition with a blessed but empty system folder.

I forgot about ALT.

 

[Macdrone]

USB flash drives work pretty well.  I usually have no issues, some external drives have issues so I try not to use them.