10.4 installed to iMac via target mode, only bootable from second Mac
 

I installed 10.4 after wiping the 9.1 this iMac had on it clean using
disk utilities.

After I finished the installation, all seemed well. The installer rebooted me to the desktop of the iMac via target mode. Now, if I try to boot the iMac on its own, without it connected to another Mac (my G5 desktop) I just get the flashing question mark. I also cannot get it to boot from any CD/DVDs. This was why I installed across Firewire
to begin with.

Any ideas?

Did you update firmware on the iMac before installing OS X? This is very important.

What, precisely, does it say on the face of the CDs and DVDs that you have tired to boot it with. Please be detailed, tell us all of the text on the face of those CDs and DVDs.

Exactly precisely and in great detail what iMac is it? And what "G5 desktop" did you install from?

Trevor

Okay, restart from install CD. Then, open "Disk Utility" and re-format the drive. Make sure that you do not install OS9 drivers when re-formatting.

i cannot boot from the cd for whatever reason. but when i go into disk utility and i end up doing this agian, ill disable that os 9 driver... wasnt sure if that made a difference...

now, Trevor...

yes, i updated to firmware 4.1.9 when i was still using os 9. during my initial setup of os x, i did format the drive clean, so the only thing that is on it is the installed os x that doesnt boot.

as for discs, they were the "vanilla" - so ive been told, install discs for 10.3. there are 3 discs, which i only needed 2 of them, and they said Mac OS X 10.3 install CD.

when i tried 10.4 its the "Oem" version for PPC users to install on any mac they want. its a DVD and i believe it says Mac OS X 10.4 Install DVD"

my imac is a g3 400mhz slot loading dv, orange.

the g5, im not honestly sure about. when i get home i can run profiler and see... it was one of the last ones before they changed to an intel architecture, but i dont recall if its a dual processor or not. i wanna say its single.

i was hoping you would hop over to this thread, i have seen your past posts...

Oh man, you don't actually have to start from the CD, use target disk mode and run "Disk Utility" from the other machine. I had a similar problem when I was trying to make an Emergency startup volume fro my mac. It would not boot untill I re-formatted it without the OS9 drivers. 10.4 will not work, as far as I can tell, if you have them installed. You can partition the drive into 2 sections: 1 for 10.4 and 1 for Classic if you want. On the Classic partition you can install the drivers.

The 10.4 disk should be black in color. If it is gray, you purchased a disk and wasted your money. OS 9 drivers do not make a difference.

You MUST get the firmware update via OS 9 and install it, or OS X will not work at all.

yup, i got the firmware... and yea the cd is black.

When you installed, which computer was booted in target mode? There are instructions on the web for doing it both ways, but the preferred way would be to boot the computer with the working optical drive in target mode, as the boot drive for the computer containing the hard drive to be installed on.

Apart from that, given that there seem to be issues booting from the internal optical drive as well, I wonder if a PRAM or NVRAM reset would help:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

And as others have said - don't do a PRAM reset if the firmware isn't fully updated. I know you said yours is up to date, but I'm mentioning it because it would be irresponsible to post instructions to do a PRAM reset on a G3 iMac with OS X newly installed, without the warning.

ya... understood. good thing i updated the firmware as i have actually tried this as well.

well by what you suggested as far as which computer to use as target, i did it the other way around. if i cannot repair this current os x installation, i have borrowed a friends os 9.1 CD that i may end up having to somehow boot that and install from that disk. then of course, i would just be wiping that clean with os x... problem is, i am not sure my computer will actually boot off the 9.1 cd to let me try this... so far, i havent found an os x CD/DVD that will boot. not sure about os 9 tho... i wouldnt think that there would be any difference here.

When you installed 10.4, the installer determined that it was running on a G5, and thus did not install stuff that an iMac needs. You can do target-mode installs on the same class of machine (e.g. iMac and PPC Mini) but not spread across classes like you have.

You're probably stuck doing it again, but the other way round like biovisier suggested. Or if you have a friend with a PPC iBook you could use that as well (same class of computer)

I don't necessarily agree with that. The installer doesn't really 'pick and choose'. I don't know where you folks get that idea. All available drivers are normally installed, just ignored on a Mac that doesn't use them. You will find that you have extensions for both ATI and Nvidia, for example, even if you only have one type vid card. How would you be able to have an external boot drive that can boot any working PPC Mac with FireWire, from the same installation, like I use with OS X 10.4?

Anyway, how much memory is installed in the iMac?

If you have a really small amount installed (say, 64 MB) OS 9 will work fine, but probably will always fail to boot with OS X. It will boot another Mac through FireWire target mode fine.

perhaps i should describe how it "fails to boot" as well...

ok, so i have a spare hard drive that i laid a bootable image of os x down on, and i can boot from that on another mac. when i try to select that as a bootable drive in Startup Disc in os 9 it allows it, but always craps over to my os 9 install.

when i hold down option during boot up, and i try to choose the os x firewire external drive built from that image, it just sends me in a loop back to the drive selection screen. the only thing that seems to work is os 9. it also is worth mentioning that this same behavour occurs with an os x install dvd.

which by the way i went back and put os 9 on it tonight as i mentioned i would probably be trying... thats how the above statements were tested and made possible.

i have noticed i only have 64MB of memory in this guy... just now as you ask. could this really be causing the non boot?

Yup. That'll do it.

wow. all that trouble and its a crummy shortage of memory. i cant tell if i should be relieved or what.

so i guess if i have os x installed on the drive, once i get the memory all will be ok? i wont have to reinstall it agian will I?

Experimentation has shown that it does.
Example: Install OS on an iMac using the standard retail discs, then clone to an eMac. It will complain that the clock drivers are missing. Install using the same discs on the eMac directly and everything is fine.

So something happens either during the install process or during the first boot.

i was def. curious of this... but i cannot seem to get os 9 on the imac to see the target mode'ed G5 at all. i can only seem to get it to go the other way round.

Ah, well trying a clone from one Mac to a different type of Mac is not a normal install, and that is not what I was referring to. Install OS X 10.4.6 to an external hard drive (using a G5, for example), and move the hard drive to a G3 iMac, and the system will boot from that drive with no errors. I have booted to the drive that I have, to probably any FireWire capable Mac, and transplanted to a few that don't do FireWire. No driver/missing file messages.

Cloning a working system may ignore the drivers that are not used by that hardware, I suspect.

The G5 hard drive would not have OS 9 drivers installed (not needed, as it won't boot to OS 9), so that should explain why the drive won't show as bootable on the older iMac.

oh ok... that def. makes sense.

well just to update you all and let you know... the problem was the memory. i guess i just expected that even though it was really low it would still BOOT and just have to page alot. it was dumb of me not to even legitimatly check this before working on this machine but ive put some more into it that i had laying around and its actually all working.

thanks for all your input!

Older macs cannot read an intel mac in target disk mode

Interesting opinion, but not a fact. An Intel Mac can mount in Target boot mode, but can't boot a PPC Mac.
Seems to be different on the newest alu-iMacs. Some don't get those newest ones to mount at all. The previous Intel models do, in fact, mount on PPC Macs.

OK, so I mean that any machine lower than 10.4 cannot read an intel mac in target disk mode. Not a supported format.

Yes, but not sure that your response adds any info to help this thread, and there's a work-around for that.
If you have an Intel Mac, and a Mac running something older than 10.4, the old Mac can't mount the Intel system, but the Intel Mac can mount the old Mac, no problem. So, you can easily copy files across even from an older system.