File this one under the heading of “we may never know”. Unless an active member here lives close enough to Philadelphia to take Vimanas up on his offer and swoop in to relieve him of this machine. (PM Vimanas for details.) Vimanas has decided to “give it up” citing:
“a personal rule when it comes to older technology like this - as soon as i find i'm spending more time troubleshooting something than i am actually making something with it, that means it's time for it to go. this is how i hope to avoid my vintage apple products multiplying like rabbits (which they already sort of are), i just want to minimize my clutter as much as possible.” Now that
is self-control.
However, it seems that he was successful in installing the necessary OS 9 & OS X software on two separate drives in his 1.25 single processor MDD and
then, by moving both of those to his 1.25 dual processor MDD… he was eventually able to boot, run and EVEN install the same software again, via the optical drive of the 1.25 DP.
SUCCESS! (Well, perhaps a short-lived success.)
Afterwards, while at work, his girlfriend moved the machine
“from one shelf to another, less than two feet” and then the MDD was back to its’ old tricks.
“power button lights up, goes dark, lights back up during the chime, loads to OS boot screen and either hangs eternally on the OS 9 side or shuts off on the OS X side - exact same condition as before.” My 1.25 DP MDD does the same “light, light-off, then solid light” at startup but it does go on to stable boot. Suspecting some fault on Vimanas' power button circuit, I have offered to send him a replacement power button to replace his. (Perhaps late, as his MDD is already listed on eBay.)
“SOMETHING is loose in there - this has got to be a hardware issue that doesn't have to do with the HDD, optical drive, ram or processor (as all work beautifully otherwise!).”
During this, and my own efforts to duplicate / test this “install on one machine and move to another” routine, I did also discover that the single processor 1GHz MDD that I used to more closely duplicate his conditions, was in fact a later model FW 800 MDD with boot rom 4.60f1. And, from looking at the title & pics on the eBay listing, Vimanas’ 1.25 Dual… is also a FW 800 model. So, maybe the same boot rom on his machine contibuted to this malady? At any rate, thought others might be interested in all of this and offer up pertinent, additional theory / commentary?
Seems odd that his machine would boot OS 9? My FW 800 SP MDD won’t… although HDs with the OSs installed on my FW 800
DO flawlessly
BOOT when transferred to my 1.25 DP MDD. Rather an inverse of Vimanas’ (surmised), ROM 4.48f2 (SP non-FW 800) to his DP FW 800 MDD. This FW 800 info might have been helpful, upfront.
GaryN quote: "Then there's (bad?) firmware??"At the very least, this exercise has provided me with the
“VTE” syndrome-effect acronym for future reference / use. The
“Vimanas-Teale-Effect” to partially replace the previous
“Something-Not-There” …in this case, describing the fact that Original MDD Restore / Install disks are
not bootable… as are not any copies or generations thereafter, via the aforementioned disks.
And as remaining “working” MDD numbers become more finite (with a good portion of those still working, represented here on MacOS9Lives), possibly… there will be more MDD “shells” (sans HDs and / or PSUs), that similar resurrections may also be attempted upon? (Just spreading the “gospel” and the possible “propagation of the faith”. Can I get an Ahh-men?)
For additional never-say-die “hack and hack and hack” testimonials in possibly related veins, see:
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”www.arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=134541AND, thank you Vimanas… for your patience and contribution(s) to “the cause”.
Topic: 1.24 DP MDD Hangs at boot - Help! (Read 4997 times)