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New Little iMac


Guest LilBambi

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Guest LilBambi

Well, a friend gave me an old 1998 (I think) Teal/Aqua G3 233mhz, 96MB RAM, 4GB HD, CD-Rom, ATI video card iMac running the updated (at that time) Mac OS 8.6.I was working fine till I had to change the clock on it because TechTool Pro complained about the clock being off. It certainly was! So I went to change the date on it to the current date and it locks up.Now it won't reboot at all.And I was just getting into all the software it had on it. I don't necessarily think it will ever be on the Internet but it's my first Mac and I really was beginning to enjoy it! LOL!Another friend in Texas is sending me a boot disk with some utilities on it to see if I can resurrect it. He walked me through a couple keystroke things that generally will bring it back. I unplugged it and gave it the old 10 count and no go. It just comes up with a tiny purple folder that goes back and forth between the little Mac OS icon and a ?I should get the disk by the end of the week. I am hopeful that with that I can get it back up and running.I know it's ancient by Mac standards today, but it is a Mac and my first one!Any additional thoughts that you all might have on it would be greatly appreciated.

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This kind of thing is usually fixed easy with any of the couple of things.If you have bootable MacOS system, you can boot from it and run Disk First Aid.Very helpful is Norton Utilities too.If you go past the question mark and purple folder, which is sign that your system disk is missing or can't be mounted, you can hold down Command and Option together to rebuild your desktop.I hope you get it resolved as I enjoyed MacoS until 7.6, than kind of hated it until MacOSX.Version 8 was probably the worst Mac OS version ever, at least for me :)Good luck

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Guest LilBambi

Thanks zox! That must be what's on the bootable CD that my friend in TX is sending.I will update here when I get the disk so I can let you all know how it comes out. :thumbsup:

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Guest LilBambi

Is there some special keys to get it to boot from CD?On boot, the CD light comes on for abit and then goes out but it doesn't boot from the CD.And I think that the CD drive is causing scratches on the Disk!I have a feeling the CD drive is toast ... worse than toast!Oh, well...guess this little iMac may be out of the running. :thumbsup:

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As Julie said, C will get you to boot from CD.Your battery might be gone or you need to reset the pram.Restart your mac and hold down apple, option, p and r simultaneously, and wait for the start up chime to sound three times, then let go.That will reset the pram.I hope this helps

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Guest LilBambi

Thanks Julia and zox!I took the little guy apart. Turned out I took it apart abit more than I actually needed to the first time. The second time to check the hard drive was seated well went much quicker. ;)It does appear that the hard drive may be toast. We found that when we pulled out the CD that a piece of the mounting bracket (inside the drive!) was peeled up abit and scraping the CD when it was put in and likely keeping it from spinning up as well.After we fixed the mounting bracket, and put it back together, the CD drive now works and starts to boot when you press C as you boot.It starts to boot the TechTool Pro CD, then pops out the CD after giving the Happy Mac icon, and within a few seconds the hard drive starts to make sounds like thrashing, you know, the head whipping from rail to rail, and then you actually have to unplug the iMac to get it to stop that. It won't shut down with any of the normal buttons/commands at that point.Yes, I had done the PRAM thing as well zox. That was one of the things our friend in TX told me about.Yes, it is an OEM CD of TechTool Pro for the PPC Mac Rich. :)

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Hmmm. Toasted drive for breakfast? Perhaps there is a spare drive somewhere you can use.... Glad you figured out the CD before you trashed anything else.

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Guest LilBambi

I may have to go take a peak at CheapBytes or something, to see if they have it Adam ...might just be the ticket.We don't have the bandwidth for that kind of thing since we use dialup for business too. :teehee:Course I still would like to have Mac OS on this little guy too.Does anyone know whether any standard drive will work with the 1998 G3 iMac? It currently has a Western Digital drive in it (4GB) that came with it originally.

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Does anyone know whether any standard drive will work with the 1998 G3 iMac? It currently has a Western Digital drive in it (4GB) that came with it originally.
Here is a site that may be of interest:http://www.djonmac.com/index.htmlThis page talks about what type of hard drive to use.I replaced the hard drive in my IMac with a 40GB Maxtor, no problems.When I had my IMac I found replacement system disks that matched my unit on eBay for about $12 including shipping.Here are some more links you might find interesting:http://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/http://www.eskimo.com/~pristine/appud.html
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Guest LilBambi

Great links Dale Ray! Thanks :thumbsup:I may have a hard drive here I can put in it then.I will first check to see if the CD boots without the hard drive connected to determine if the TechTool Pro CD has been damaged beyond use. It seems it might be. But I need to be sure.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest LilBambi

Sorry, have been so busy that I haven't had time to play with the little iMac. Unfortunately, the Mac has an IDE drive so the SCSI one didn't work.I also need to get a new CMOS battery for it and need to find out where to get one.Eventually, I will have time to play with the little guy to see if I can revive him, but until then he sits here on my desk waiting for me to get to it. :w00t:

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest LilBambi

Well, the hard drive and the CMOS battery is appparently dead in my iMac. I will likely be able to use the keyboard and mouse from the iMac on the Mac Mini! See below.All is not lost! I will be receiving a Christmas gift of a Mac Mini! See the following topic that I started on that one:Mac Mini coming soon!:P :w00t:

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