Booting a G3 from a cd.

M

Mog_m

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Messages
97
Ok, I recently came into the possesion of 5 G3 macs. I want to put yellowdog linux on some of them, but for some reason even after I select the CD drive as the startup disk it still boots from the HardDrive. I know it is not the CD because I have a MacOS 7.5 cd that came with my old mac, A Preforma 5200 that wont boot either.

We have tried holding C, I have even tried unhooking the HD, but it wont boot to the CD.

The drive is definetly hooked up right because after we boot we see the CD fine.

Anyone have any ideas or anything to try?

Thanks alot.
 
Well there's no way that 7.5 CD will boot it, its way too old. As for the linux, are you sure those discs are bootable on that machine? It can be fairly specific sometimes with linux.
 
That would explain a few things.

Any idea how I can check to see if the disk is bootable? it has a boot folder on it, but I know how little that often means.

Could I have burned the wrong image? Do I need to burn it a special way? I got the ones labled yellowdog-3.0.1-sirius-20031118-install1.iso.

Thanks for your help, I had no idea macs were so perticular of what they boot off of.
 
it just sounds like those disks are not bootable...I would try on a different system and see if they work there but I have a feeling they won't work...in general if you hold the "C" key at boot and it still boots to the HD then the disk is not recognized as a bootable CD and as such the comp says...hhhuuummmm...you want me to boot to CD but I don't see one I can boot to so lets hit the HD instead
 
Do you haveto burn mac ISO's a special way, or SHOULD a bootable mac ISO be bootable if you burn it normally?
 
that is a good question...I have never tried to burn a bootable ISO before but I have been able to duplicate my OS X install disk in toast before and it appeared to work fine but the ISO...no idea sorry
 
I would suggest checking any kind of preferences in Adaptec/Roxio Toast for making the disk bootable. On the OS X version of toast, you'd want to go to the menu that says "copy cd" and then choose Image file.

Macs and PCs are very similar in the fact that you can't boot and use an old operating system on a new computer. Sure you can try but you'll have all sorts of various issues.. mostly with hardware compatability.
The Mac OS is very tied into the hardware... the general idea is to use a Operating system that came out more recently than the computer did. Obviously you can use a OS that's too new and has high system requirements.
 
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