Jaguar won't install after reformat

[fizgig]

Help! I don't know what to do. If anyone has had any success with this problem, please let me know.

I have a G4 that has 3 partitions - with OS 9/OSX/Work Stuff on them. I was running mainly on OS 9 and decided to switch to the OSX side. I did have 10.1 for a while but found the bugs were too much so I upgraded to 10.2 Jaguar. It was great until this weekend. I ran Norton Utilities from the OS9 side and booted up on OSX and it was buggered. I did not have much installed so I thought I would cut my losses and reinstall the software (Jaguar) but it won't install. I have tried everything (installing 10.1 then upgrading to 10.2, formatting and installing Jaguar full, totally erasing disk manually and doing the previous) all with the same effect. Jaguar will not fully install - it goes through the process and when it is complete and propts to reboot it won't start up. I get the blank grey screen with apple and then nothing else happens. The strange thing is, is that OSX 10.1 will install.
I tried to do a total restore but that would not work(I got an error on the 4th disk). I had to do a manual erase of all my disks and repartition and reinstalled OS 9 with success but Jaguar still does the same thing.

Any suggestions?

Please help!:mad:

[slur]

What kind of machine are you installing on? Older machines are limited to installing Mac OS X within the first 8GB of the hard drive. Modern machines with flashy firmware are immune to this problem.

[fizgig]

I have a G4 tower with about 800Ghz and 500 Ram. 60 Gig. I got 256 additional memory that I thought might be the problem - maybe it has gone bad. I was going to try taking it out and reinstalling. I have updated all the firmware so I know that is not the problem. I am at a loss now. I am thinking maybe I should just wait till OS11 comes out and try then.

??

Thanks for your reply

[yellow]

Did you try to reformat (all zeros/low level) or just re-initialize your disk? Try reformatting the disk with your OS 9 installer. This WILL take a while. It should also clear up any problems that your disk is having. It's very unlikely that it's a RAM problem. If anything it'd be a hard drive problem. OS X does NOT like what Norton Utilites (for OS 9) does to it. It's entirely possible that Norton has moved/screwed up the boot block on the partition that OS X tried to use. Again, a total low-level reformat/zero should fix this problem. I've never been a big fan of partitions, too many problems. Also, have you tried using the Disk Utility on the Jaguar disk to first aid it?

[fizgig]

yeah, this is the second time someone has suggested reformating to zero. I must try that next. I have used the disk utility that came with OSX - no luck. I have done permissions and repair. Came up with a lot of errors but did not solve the problem.

Apparently formatting to zero, takes some time - and I am in the middle of doing a mag right now so no time to spare.

Now, when you say partitioning is not good - does that mean that I can install 0S9 & OSX on the same partition? Is that not risky?

I will never use Norton again, buggered it up good. Oh well - lesson learned. Once I figure out the solution, I will post it so others can use the info.

thanks for your help

:)

[yellow]

Yeah, it does take a while. It could be ~4-6 hours to low-level format your 60 gig hard drive. But it sounds to me like that will be the only way to fix this pain.

As for "risky" problems with OS 9 and OS X on the same partition. Well, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by risky. If you have a partitioned disk and the disk goes bad, having partitions won't save you since they are all a part of the same bad disk. With the exeption of one computer, every one I manage has OS X and 9 on the same disk (single partition), and I've not had any problems yet (6 for about a year, and now 15 machines and rising weekly). I'm not saying partitioning is good or bad, I think it's just preference, and mine is against partitioning. :) But no, you shouldn't have any problems with 9 & 10 on a single partition.

[snowwwman]

try booting into verbose mode <command + v> at startup and see what the hangup is. then maybe you could get a better chance at troubleshooting it.
dark crystal

[fizgig]

I am new at this whole OSX thing - when I boot verbose - what will come up? What do I do? Does it just give me info on what is wrong/conflicting?

Is there a reference I can go to - on the internet that explains all this stuff?

Thanks for your response!

Impressed that you got the "Dark Crystal" reference

:)

[snowwwman]

Did you try to do a clean install from the CD? when you get to the screen that has the picture of your drive what do you see? does it have a green arrow or a stop sign on it? if it has a stop sign try clicking on options "i think" then select erase and install with the format being Mac Extended. The verbose thing will show you whats going on in the boot process. after you see where its hanging google or post the part it hangs on.
Podling.. wheres your essence?