Blue & White Yikes! logic board -9 will not load

[mraroid]

Hello....

I am having a strange problem installing OS 9.2.1 (I have the correct Apple branded CD) on my Blue & White.

My B&W has a Yikes logic board in it.  It is G4 running at 500 Mhz.  I bought a 64 GB solid state drive.  I plugged in a SATA to ATA adaptor into the SS drive.  I plugged in the ribbon cable and power.

I boot to my OS 9.2.1 CD by holding down the "C" key.  I go to utilities and the then format the SS drive.  It will see the drive, and let me format it as one partition,  two partitions, etc.  After it is partitioned, I run Disk First Aid.  It tests the disk and finds nothing wrong.

After that, I start the install.  All goes well.  No errors.  At the end of the install, it asks me to reboot which I do.  I boot to my OS 9 desktop.  I can move my mouse around, and the screen seems to be fine.  I see a menu across the top of the screen, and some icons on the right hand side.  But I can not click on anything and make something happen.

After I did  a fresh partition, and reboot, I get a screen that says something like "Hold on a moment while we set up your computer".  And it will stay like that all day and all night.  Again, I can move my mouse all over the screen , but nothing I click on will do anything.  I have replaced the mouse.  I have powered the mouse from the back of the B&W, or from the keyboard.  Same issue.

I swapped out the ribbon cable and the SATA to ribbon cable adapter.  I have swapped out the SS drive.

I have done this install maybe 10 or more times always with the same results.

I do have a few questions....

Which file format should I choose?  Extended, standard, or what?

I did upgrade my stock CD optical drive to a apple branded CD/DVD drive.  Could that be it?

I never receive any error messages.  The OS 9 screen I boot to will just not do anything.

I am new to this hardware, but kind of know general hardware and software computing things.  But I am stumped.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

mraroid

[mraroid]

And some additional info...

I started the install of 9.2.1 using a ATI 9200 video card.  Not knowing what was causing my issues, I removed the card, and installed the stock ATI card that came with the B&W.  That did not change anything....

mraroid

[GaryN]

As always, guess-troubleshooting complex tech issues online depends on you providing absolutely as much info as possible - even that which you think is irrelevant.
Now actually, you've done better than most. So, let me get a couple little things out of the way first.

Extended is the format for your drive. Standard is less efficient and wastes space. It's only there because OS8 and below can't use extended. NOT your problem - it will actually work either way.
There were originally issues with 500MHz Yikes! boards and they were speed-dumped to 450 for a while. That is probably also not your problem.
Remarkably, your SS-to SATA-to-ATA is probably OK as well. If it wasn't, it wouldn't work at all. Plus, you say you swapped them out without success.
You changed the optical drive. That ain't it either - same reason…it just wouldn't work.
You swapped the video card - also no fix.

All of that is what I mean by you've done better than most. At least you had the other parts to replace and retry…imagine if you didn't!

You do have one problem: You went through everything 10 times. That's time you don't get back…

End of the day, the real problem seems to be: Mouse clicks don't work.  You didn't say if keyboard commands DO work, so try this:
After you're at the desktop where you get stuck, try pressing ⌘N   See if a new empty folder appears - If it does, immediately type a name for it. if that works, the keyboard is OK, the USB extension is enabled and working and the only problem left is……… THE MOUSE!

Now, reboot. After the chime, press and hold the shift key until you see the desktop and a little message "extensions off".
NOW see if the mouse works. If it does, you have an "extension conflict" If it doesn't, are you certain the mouse is good? Is it an Apple mouse?
Do you have another one of those to try? I'm guessing no - if you did, you would have tried that already. Go beg, borrow or steal one.
If it's a 3rd-party mouse, you should try a different one even though it should basically work. You may need a special extension for it.

Get this far and see if you can determine if, as I said, it's an "extension conflict" or a defective mouse, or a defective mouse or a fukin Gypsy curse and holler back.

[mraroid]

Thank you for helping me.

I see that I did not do a very good job of describing my problem completely. My bad.

When I boot to my OS9 screen, I do have mouse movement.  But my mouse is not a pointer, it is a small B&W logo of a clock face.

After I partition the SS drive and then install OS9, on my first boot, I boot to the normal OS 9 screen, but on the left is a box that is the "Mac OS set up assistant" box.  I have let this B&W clock face sit overnight and it will not go away.  When I hard boot a second time, the mac set up box is gone, and I have mouse movement, but the mouse pointer is again the small B&W clock face.

The keyboard I was using was the correct one for the B&W - the keyboard with the start button on it.  The start button works as well as the start button on the B&W.

After reading your post, I swapped out my keyboard for a all white Apple keyboard and booted the Mac.  Same issue.

I have two mice.  Both are apple branded.  They are the clear mice with the gray apple logo in the center.  On the bottom of the mouse it says "Pro Mouse". I can buy more apple branded mice and keyboards at my local Goodwill if need be. Just say the word.

I am unable to shut the Mac down correctly when i boot to OS 9, so I un plug the Mac.  I wait 10 seconds, plug it in, then boot again.

The first screen I see is a file folder with a alternating question mark, and a Mac face.  It goes on for less then 30 seconds, then I see the normal happy face mac.  After that I see the "Not shut down correctly" screen.  After it has finished looking at my hard drive, I have a button called "Done" that I click.  At this point, I have a normal mouse pointer.  Next, I go to my boot screen.  Icons load along the bottom of the screen.  All load but for one.  One icon has a red X across it.  It is hard to describe this icon.  It is similar to a icon of software that one could run on a 68030 processor to make it think it is a 68040 processor.  It might be a processor icon with some horizontal lines across it.  As I can not get into OS 9 to check it out, I really do not know what it is.

When the icons load, I have a normal mouse pointer.  I even have a normal mouse pointer when the OS 9 screen appears, but as the OS 9 screen fully loads, the mouse pointer changes to the small B&W clock face.  I can move this clock face all over the screen, but I can not click anything. I tried to do your experiment, but nothing happened - both with my original apple keyboard and the all white apple keyboard.

At this point, I can drop in my OS 9.2.1 CD and reboot holding down the C key.  I boot to my CD.  I run Disk first Aid, and it tells me my hard drive is just fine.  I have a mouse pointer and not a clock face.  I re partition the SS drive yet again, load OS 9, and the same thing happens all over again.

I am quite puzzled.

Any more suggestions greatly appertained.

[DieHard]

OK... this is a shot in the dark, but let's talk a bout a few things...

The PowerMac G4 PCI (yikes) does NOT look like a "Blue and White" so I might assume (although incorrectly) that you have a G3.

From the speed you mentioned, it sounds like a G4... I only bring this up because the G3 Blue and white with the rev 1 Motherboard can drive you nuts with IDE corruption and it's lack of UDMA-33 support; again the speed you mentioned, should be a rev 2 board (an overclocked at that); but one may assume you could have a G3 with a rev 1 board running overclocked or an upgrade CPU... or a frankenstein Powermac in a G3 Blue and White Case; either way, give us the Motherboard Part number !

Lastly... your converter MUST have the ability to Jumper "Master" and "Slave" as "Cable select" will not work correctly on Yikes and some converters default to that

Some background on the G3 Rev 1 and 2 boards

The Revision 2 B&W G3 uses a different motherboard, has an additional drive bracket, incorporates a new IDE controller chip (marked 402) that supports UDMA-33. 350 MHz and 400 MHz models may have either motherboard; 450 MHz versions only shipped from the factory with the Rev. 2 board. The improved IDE controller supports the standard master/slave drive configuration and solves a drive corruption problem. The Revision 1 board isn’t stable with many modern hard drives on the built-in IDE bus because the controller doesn’t support UDMA (Mac OS X does an end run around this problem by disabling UDMA on the Rev. 1 motherboard).

A common suggestion in the old days was to put the hard drive on the 16.7 MBps ATA-3 bus used by the optical drive, but the Rev. 1 motherboard doesn’t support booting from hard drives on that bus. See the Wikipedia article about the Blue & White G3 for a lot more information about Rev. 1 failings.

When buying a Blue & White G3, insist on getting a Revision 2 system. The best way to make sure you’re getting a Rev. 2 motherboard is the “402” marking on the CMD646 IDE controller chip. See Accelerate Your Mac! for more details on differences between these motherboard revisions.

[mraroid]

Thank you for your post.  When I bought the B&W it had a version 2 logic board in it.  I had a Yikes! logic board, so I swapped out the original board for the Yikes logic board.  And yes, it is a G4 running at 500Mhz.

The PATA to SATA adapter for the SS drive has a setting for master or slave.  I have it set for master.

At first, I used the original ribbon cable that came with my B&W.  It is very long and I thought it might get crimped when I closed the case.  I thought this might be causing my issue.  So I bought a new ribbon cable which is much shorter and only has one head on it, not two like the original ribbon cable.  While trouble shooting, I rolled in the original ribbon cable again to see if it would fix the problem I am having, but it did not help.

The other bus is the ribbon cable for the optical drive.  I had a CD optical drive in the B&W when I bought it.  I swapped it out for apple branded CD/DVD drive.  It is (and was) the only device on this chain - I never did have a Zip drive in this B&W.

mraroid

[DieHard]

Thank you for your post.  When I bought the B&W it had a version 2 logic board in it.  I had a Yikes! logic board, so I swapped out the original board for the Yikes logic board.  And yes, it is a G4 running at 500Mhz.

Thanks... that helps

A Frankenstein.... a G4 that lives in a G3 case... that is a start... it's the little details, like Gary said, that always help.  I kinda thought that was what you originally said since you mentioned Yikes 500, but some new members throw a lot of terms around that they read about and sometimes mix things up, thanks for stating what may have been obvious to you

[GaryN]

Yup. It's the often little details and in your case, the little omissions…

Your mice are OK. Your keyboard is OK. At this point, I'm guessing everything is OK.
EXCEPT:

That one little thing you left out…the "clock face". That's telling you that something is hanging up in the boot process, evidently when it's like 1 inch away from finished.
It's waiting (clock face = waiting) for something either to load or finish loading but that's not happening so the whole boot is hanging right there. That's why you can't click anything.
The red "X" you're seeing is an extension or control panel that is disabled or turned off. Sometimes aftermarket developers make that happen at boot to remind you that you don't have their wonderful product turned on. I have one of those (Adobe Type Manager) that I see every time. That's NOT necessarily a problem. Actually, in this case, it's probably a good thing, because it tells me something important.

You're evidently NOT installing 9.2.1 from an Apple original disc (there's that little omission again) because you would never see that "X" in an original installation.

I'm almost positive I'm correct about this. (Actually, I was wrong once, but that was a really long time ago…) So, after all this back and forth, I'm going to recommend a really simple test:

Install a different, known-to-be-good OS - preferably 9.2.2 - and see if THAT works. The odds are good it will.

How? I'm hoping the machine you're using to communicate with the Forum can download it from here and burn a CD to use. That would be the quick and easy way.
You can use the one found here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html
If you can't do that, beg, borrow or steal one or if absolutely no other way, send me your address and I'll burn and mail you one.

If I'm wrong (naah) and you are using a genuine, Apple-branded retail CDR of OS 9.2.1 and NOT a mysterious gray "restore" machine-specific, came-with-the-computer type, tell me immediately because then I'm probably full of shit (go ahead everybody, that's a freebie) and we'll have to keep thinking. But it sounds like something is getting installed wrong, is missing, corrupt or similar and it's just your bad luck for it to be something that is causing a hang at the exact moment where it leaves everything totally stuck. Because of that, this is a perfect catch-22… there's no way I can see to even try to find or fix whatever it is without a working OS to use.

To be continued…………

[mraroid]

Thank you again for the help.

I tried to see if i could upload a photo of the CD I am using to this forum.  If it is possible, I am unable to find the button to do so.

The CD I am using is made by Apple.  It is white with a orange "9" in the center of the disk.  On the left hand side of the disk is says:

Mac OS 9

Featuring Sherlock 2

To start up from
this CD, hold down
the C key as the
computer starts up

Version 9.2.1
691-3334-A

Written around the top outside of the disk it says "2001 Apple Computer Inc" and a bunch of other copy right stuff.

When I flip the CD to the back, and look in the center, etched in the disk (in small text) it says:

Recorded in Canada 693-3650A *** 889609-009 * ZOMAX

This disk looks real to me, ie, not a fake knock off.  I used this CD in the past when I first bought the B&W.  I used it to load 9.2.1, then I updated it to 9.2.2.  That was when I had the version 2 B&W logic board in the B&W. As I had a Yikes! logic board, I sold my version 2 logic board, and installed the Yikes!.

My 9.2.1 disk is clean, no scratches to speak of.  I used a can of compressed air to blow out the original CD optical drive as well as the drive I have now (a CD/DVD apple banded drive).  They seem to work fine. As a test, I re installed the original CD optical drive and have the same issue.

To make sure I had no conflicts, I removed any PCI cards in the Yikes! logic board , except for the video card.  When I first started, I had an ATI 9200 video card installed.  After maybe five or six attempts to install OS 9, I remove that video card, and re installed the stock ATI card that came from the factory.  No other cards are in any of the PCI slots. Right now, the original ATI video card in in the B&W.

The B&W is stock but for the Yikes! logic board, the CPU, new ribbon cable to the SS drive, the SSD, the PATA to SATA adapter on the SS drive, and the apple branded CD/DVD drive.

I was using the Apple branded mouse and keyboard that came with the B&W.  I bought a white Apple keyboard at the goodwill and used it for a while, but I went back to the original keyboard because I like the start button on the original keyboard.  I have two Apple branded mice, and both worked in the past when I had the version 2 logic board in the B&W.

Before I posted here. I did the following:

I swapped out the SS drive for another 64GB SS drive.  I swapped out the ribbon cable, I swapped out the PATA to SATA adapter (it is optioned for Master), I swapped out the CD/DVD optical drive for the original CD drive.

I would be happy to try another CD/DVD of OS 9 if you think that would help trouble shoot this problem.

mraroid

[mraroid]

My other Mac computer is a Color Classic. 

Can I down load and burn a OS 9 from your link on a windows 10 computer? I did a quick ebay search, and I did not find the Apple CD I have for sale.

But perhaps that is not the issue? I am stumped.

mraroid

[mraroid]

I have made some progress, but my B&W is still broken.

After some reading on this forum, I read that if I hold down the Shift key on boot, I can boot with extensions off.  So I tried that.  I was then able to boot to my windows 9.2.1 desktop and have a mouse pointer.  I was able to open and close folders and all seemed well.

I went to extension manager to look for the icon of the extension that has a red X across it when I boot.  I do not have any icons that look like that.  I decided to disable extensions that I do not use.  For example, I have no printer, so I un checked all extensions that are related to printers.  I un checked things that I probably would never use, like voice to text.  After un checking everything I thought I could, I rebooted and had the same issue.

So, I guess I have a extension conflict on boot?

I am not sure what all I can disable.  I am afraid that if I just start disabling things in mass, then the Mac may not boot at all.

Am I on the right track?  Any suggestions on what to disable?

Thanks gain for all the help,

mraroid

[GaryN]

OK ! believe it or not, you're correct - you've made progress !

The CD is fine. It's exactly what I was hoping for. It was only the symptoms and that I couldn't tell (this is kinda like troubleshooting in the dark when you can't actually see anything) that made me want to verify it.

So, you guess correctly. You have an extension conflict. The shift-boot would have been my next suggestion and i didn't try it sooner because:

There's NO way you should be having a conflict with a factory install. So now…
We're at: How can this be? Back to guesswork.
A conflict for no apparent reason that goes away with shift-boot. Maybe…maybe…maybe  The Yikes! board in the B&W. causing some minor issue that can be easily address if you can just find it.
So, this is now easy. 1. Hangs at boot. 2. Boots with extensions off. 3. What's 3?

Shift-boot again. Launch Extensions Manager. Under the "Selected Set" menu at the top, select "9.2.1 Base".
Reboot. See what happens. Pray it boots because that will make everything easier.

If it boots, you have a working computer with only some missing accessory functions. You can use it that way. If and when you try to do something that requires a missing extension, you'll get a dialog pop-up telling you what it is, and you can enable it and reboot.

* If it hangs with only those extensions enabled, there's something going on that I'm at a loss to explain, other than it's a mysterious issue caused by having the Yikes! in the B&W.

Assuming it boots, moving on:  Your entire issue could be - and probably IS - one tiny little thing on when it should be off or off when it should be on. Her's what you do:
1. Get a pencil and paper.
2. Make a note of everything that's ON (checked) in Extensions Manager in 9.2.1 BASE.
3. Switch to 9.2.1 ALL. Make a note of all of those.
4. Begin re-enabling the ones that aren't ON yet in some system that you can keep track of, rebooting after each addition. Slowest way is one-at-a-time but that's also the easiest to keep track of…
5. Keep going until you find the one that makes the boot fail.
6. Leave that one off and finish the rest to make sure there's only one. If there's another one too, do the same and go back to 5.
7. When finished, it should be working with only one (or two) disabled items.

* Going back to *, if it does NOT boot with 9.2.1 Base extensions, do the same thing i just described - testing things one-by-one only now you're comparing and testing the difference between ALL OFF and 9.2.1 BASE.

8. Report back what you find.

              Ain't this fun?

[mraroid]

Thank you yet again for the diagnostic help.

I healed down the shift key and booted to my desktop.  I went to extension manager and selected 9.2.1. base.  Then I rebooted.

Same issue...  :-(

So, next step is to turn all off, and then enable one at a time?  OK.  I can do that.  But maybe starting tomorrow.  I have been at this all day.

Can I post pictures here?  I was able to photograph the icons that load, and the icon with the red X across it.  I only see the icons load when I try to boot with out holding down the shift key.  I thought the photo might be helpful.

I will start in tomorrow and report back.

many thanks,

mraroid

[mraroid]

Note:  I was unable to find a pick to uploading photos.  So I have made my avatar a picture of the icon that has the red X across it when I load 9.2.1.

Thoughts?

mraroid

[mraroid]

I decided to put the coffee pot on and keep working......

I found that I can enable all of my extensions but for the Quicktime ones, and my B&W boots just fine.  All of the Quicktime extensions are related to Quicktime 5.0.2.  I looked in my applications folder and found Quicktime 5.  I also have a Quicktime 5 icon on my desktop.

I went to macintoshgarden.org to see what the last version of Quicktime was that would run under 9.2  I found Quicktime 6.0.3.  I am down loading it now.

I plan on tossing Quicktime 5.0 in the trash and installing 6.0.3 to see what happens.

More later.

mraroid

[FdB]

I’m not near an OS9 machine right now but I did have similar boot problems on a B&W after upgrading / updating and… IIRC it was some video accelerator / enabler. I either used command+option+escape OR command+period… when it hung at startup to stop whatever “video action /enabling” that was attempting to take place at startup, from hanging the entire complete boot process.

Then, weeded through the ATI (or Nvidia) video extensions turning them all off before reboot and through the process of elimination found the culprit. (i.e. some video accelerator / enabler that was simply stopping the boot process. AND, it might have also been related to a QuickTime video enabler / accelerator extension as well.

Gary’s certainly got you on the right path!

UPDATE:
Okay… just went down and checked my B&W and that icon is for the “ATI Graphics Accelerator”. Mine is disabled. Problem fixed here.
*And currently running QuickTime version 6.0.3.

[GaryN]

I’m not near an OS9 machine right now but I did have similar boot problems on a B&W after upgrading / updating and… IIRC it was some video accelerator / enabler. I either used command+option+escape OR command+period… when it hung at startup to stop whatever “video action /enabling” that was attempting to take place at startup, from hanging the entire complete boot process.

Then, weeded through the ATI (or Nvidia) video extensions turning them all of before reboot and through the process of elimination found the culprit. (i.e. some video accelerator / enabler that was simply stopping the boot process. AND, it might have also been related to a QuickTime video enabler /accelarator extension as well.

Gary’s certainly got you on the right path!

UPDATE:
Okay… just went down and checked my B&W and that icon is for the “ATI Graphics Accelerator”. Mine is disabled. Problem fixed here.

 
So… where the Hell were you when we needed you? Out pickin' corn?

Sheesh………

So, Congrats on persevering through what is now apparently a known (sort of known) issue with an ATI Graphics combination unique to the B&W.
This answer was undoubtedly a lot easier to find back in the day before all this kind of obscure info evaporated.

(Thank you F for confirming it. Apparently the ATI Graphics Accelerator was NOT compatible with the early Rage card.)

Funny…it took me 30 seconds flat to find this info once I saw your drawing of the icon. Like I said earlier, like troubleshooting in the dark!
Glad it's up and running. Glad we could help - we're all about that around here.

Enjoy your new old Mac!

See the info in the pic from Extension Overload. The last sentence is illuminating…

[FdB]

Ya caught me… out having another “extended affair” in Pignose Hell.
[Think I may have Mr. Happy’s stolen (now basket-case) 1977 model.]

The ATI icon image finally tripped my feeble memory and I SPRANG into keyboard action
(and a couple of trips up and down the stairs!).

And actually… I was bringing in the sheaves.

[GaryN]

Ya caught me… out having another “extended affair” in Pignose Hell.

I thought you said you had that sorted. Now what?

[mraroid]

Gary and all....

What a wild ride.  I am not out of the woods yet, but I can see the light up ahead...

I down loaded a .sit package of Quicktime 6.0.3 last night.  I tried to use Stuffit Expander V 5.5 to un stuff it.  It did not work.  What utility do I need to un pack this?

Re the ATI video card and pesky icon...

Right now, I have the stock ATI video card installed that came from the factory.  I also have a ATI 9200 which I wish to install.  With the 9200 card, I have what I have been told are drivers for 9.2.

Should I start off with not loading any of the ATI card extensions?

I think as soon as I can get Quicktime working and my 9200 card installed, I will feel quite happy.

After all of that, I have a few 9.2 questions.  But I want to get up and running first. 

I have spent weeks trying to trouble shoot this booting problem.  All of you here fixed it in just a couple of days.  Much obliged for all the help.

mraroid

PS:  I think I will keep my avatar.  It will remind me of all the crap that happened to me while trying to get this bad boy to boot.