# Solved: iMac G3 won't boot from hd after new install



## hakune4402 (May 5, 2009)

Sorry, it's a long story:
I have an iMac 233, bondyblue, Rev. B, running 8.6 . After a necessary power off shut-down, it did not boot (screen blank), neither from hd nor from CD. 
I then replaced the battery (knowing that it was old). Attempts to restart failed. 
Restarting with a Norton Emergency disk succeeded. All hd partitions tested and repaired. Then run Apple First Aid, same. 
Restart: no success. Hence restart with original Startup CD, installation succeeds(?) (Sys 8.1 on partition hd 1 .For startup I marked this hd1) .
Restart: takes time, finally folder with ? appears blinking. Also the top line of screen displays the text: Apple; Mac Open Firmware 3.0.f2 built on 04/23/99 at .....
then comes the open firmware prompt.
I write mac-boot (enter): the system restarts, chimes, and the display shows
default catch! code=900 at $SRR0: ff81f49c $SRR1: 0000b030

Several times repeated; always the same (only the Hex adresses changed lightly). And still: booting from CD (with Norton or the orig. System) always works, and first aid says: hd OK.

Thanks for help!


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## hakune4402 (May 5, 2009)

Too bad, no reaction so far. I gave up, reformatted the harddisk using the install CD, partitioning the HD so that a partition for the system holds ca. 7 GB. Then the installation (OS 8.6) worked.
The problem seems to have been the fact that the early iMacs could handle System Files only when contained in the first max. 8 GB of the HD. Hence on a bigger HD one has to create a partition especially for the system with less than 8 GB.


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