> The first is a Bondi 233 that worked fine until another friend decided >to play around with it. Now it won't do anything but boot to the screen >with the Apple logo and the animation winds away indefinitely. I tried >booting from a CD (both OS 9 and X), but the machine just ignores it no >matter what I try. I am not sure if this machine ever had the firmware >updates (OF & CD) installed on it, either. Is this a normal occurrence, or >could the CD have gone bad? If I recall, it worked fine most of the time, >but occasionally it wouldn't show up at all when inserting a disc while in >MacOS. > > The second machine is a Tangerine 233, so I'm not sure if it was a >FrankenMac or what. It runs fine, but needs an OS reload before I can part >with it. I think the CD-ROM might be bad, but I'm not sure exactly how to >even go about testing it or finding another one on the cheap. For that >matter, are the tray load CDROM's problematic? I have another Bondi without >a CDROM that boots to the question mark just fine.
Chances are, both of these have bad CD Drives and either the OS is corrupt, or the hard drive is bad as well. THe easiest may be, if you have a working Mac, pull the hard drive from the iMac, put it into the working mac, and install the OS there. Then swap it back to the iMac. You can check out ebay for a replacement tray load CD drive, but I've had a number of them go bad, so I'm not sure how much I'd trust a used one anyway. It may be cheaper to buy an external USB CD drive and use that on them (you won't be able to boot from a USB drive, which is why I recommended pulling the hard drive and doing the OS install on another working Mac) > The third is one of the infamous slot loader 350 machines. I think it >has some of the symptoms of the video OS X loading errors, but it is >inconclusive. There is no chime, but the system fires up and the light >turns green. One time when I tried booting it, it actually acted as if it >was loading the OS but still no chime or screen. I tried the sleep then >wake trick to see if it would wake up with even distorted video, but no >luck. Since it is a 350, there is no external video port which makes this >one quite tricky. Could also be a dead CRT. I had one of these. I spent some time trying to work up a video adaptor for it, I didn't have much luck, and I eventually gave up when the power supply on my 400 MHz slot load died. I swapped its motherboard into the 350's case, and then used an external monitor to get to the video. (I still have the 350's motherboard sitting here waiting to find a use for it. In theory it works just fine, but without the external video connector or happening across another compatible iMac that happens to have a fried motherboard... I'm not sure what else to do with it except let it continue to sit and gather dust) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:imac-list@mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
