"Dead Mac" symptom after trying to start from OS X CD
"Dead Mac" symptom after trying to start from OS X CD
"I have pretty much the same symptoms if I attempt to boot OS X from the internal 4X CDROM on my 8500/G3. It starts to boot, then I get the reboot chime, then the machine is completely dead. Nothing but a power light. The first time, I thought I fried it. However, I determined that if I power it off, power it on and immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R (i.e., zap PRAM/NVRAM), it comes alive again. It is 100% repeatable. Oddly, the external CD drive does not cause these symptoms." [Wes Palmer]
"Something similar happened with my Power Mac 7500. I eventually had to unplug it and let it sit for a couple of hours."
"I tried booting OS X on my Power Tower Pro. I had the same problem. However, once I installed a G3 upgrade card, OS X had no troubles running or installing." [Joel Schmidt]
"Something similar happened to my PowerBook G3 (which supports OS X). No matter what I did, the computer wouldn't start up. I had to reset the Power Manager to get it working again (hold down shift-function-control and the power button)." [Doug Holton]
Tom Koons (of the 6400 Zone) writes: "This is very typical and is a big problem on the 6400/6500 and systems based on the same mother board. The 6500 will be completely useless until you remove the PRAM battery and let it sit for an extended period of time! The 6400 is not as bad and it only needs the battery removed for 30min or so. But all of these systems will only turn on the power supply and then sit there dead as a door nail! I have been tracking this on my web site and there is no fix at this point. It started with OS X Server and continues on with the release of 10.0.0."
Finally, John Grimes notes: "It sounds like this is a known problem with using Startup Disk instead of System Disk with non-supported Macs.See this page (Installation Instructions for Mac OS X OldWorld Support) for more info."