nKrecklow Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 I purchased a eMac from a website, it worked fines and still does however, it had OS9 along with 10.2.8 installed. I changed the startup disk to OS9 which was corrupted now when I boot the eMac it shows the blinking question mark. How can I change the startup disk back to OSX? Please note I have no restore discs, etc... Thanks, if this is in the wrong section please move it. And the keyboard won't work with it while it booting so I can't press the 'c'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Tracks Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 Start up while holding down the X key and see if that works. That will force a PPC Mac to boot into OS X. On the other hand, the ? really means that the system is unable to find ANY startup folder. There might be a bigger problem than you're thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nKrecklow Posted August 4, 2010 Author Share Posted August 4, 2010 Start up while holding down the X key and see if that works. That will force a PPC Mac to boot into OS X. On the other hand, the ? really means that the system is unable to find ANY startup folder. There might be a bigger problem than you're thinking. I don't own a Mac keyboard, it won't load the Logitech driver for the keyboard until the operating system loads. So I can't press any keys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Tracks Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 It won't matter. There is a generic driver that loads until Logitech happens on the Mac. The only thing is alt and command get switched around. Just try it and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nKrecklow Posted August 13, 2010 Author Share Posted August 13, 2010 It won't matter. There is a generic driver that loads until Logitech happens on the Mac. The only thing is alt and command get switched around. Just try it and see what happens. Nothing happens... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Tracks Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 OK...that tells me an absolute ton. Your system cannot find ANYTHING even remotely useful to boot with and cannot load the generic driver. This is why the keyboard is essentially useless. So let's try this method and see if it works. On the computer you're posting from (not the eMac of course), see if you can "accidentally" get a copy of 10.4, 10.3, 10.2, or 10.1 (of course, they are for sale for stupidly cheap also if you want to stay legal). Make 9000% sure they are CD-based and not DVD-based (the eMac might not have a DVD drive). The only reason why I say this is because the blinking ? means the system cannot find ANY startup folders at all (and thus cannot even load the generic keyboard driver). After getting this, start her up while holding down the mouse button (left clicking). This will open the CD drive. Plop the accidentally-acquired OS X (or even OS 9.2.2 specifically) CD 1 into the tray and close it. If it doesn't find the startup volume on the CD after a while reboot it and give it some time. This may take a few minutes to find the CD instead of the hard disk volume, but it should find it. If not, there is a larger problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nKrecklow Posted August 19, 2010 Author Share Posted August 19, 2010 OK...that tells me an absolute ton. Your system cannot find ANYTHING even remotely useful to boot with and cannot load the generic driver. This is why the keyboard is essentially useless. So let's try this method and see if it works. On the computer you're posting from (not the eMac of course), see if you can "accidentally" get a copy of 10.4, 10.3, 10.2, or 10.1 (of course, they are for sale for stupidly cheap also if you want to stay legal). Make 9000% sure they are CD-based and not DVD-based (the eMac might not have a DVD drive). The only reason why I say this is because the blinking ? means the system cannot find ANY startup folders at all (and thus cannot even load the generic keyboard driver). After getting this, start her up while holding down the mouse button (left clicking). This will open the CD drive. Plop the accidentally-acquired OS X (or even OS 9.2.2 specifically) CD 1 into the tray and close it. If it doesn't find the startup volume on the CD after a while reboot it and give it some time. This may take a few minutes to find the CD instead of the hard disk volume, but it should find it. If not, there is a larger problem. The CD drive worked fine before I messed up the settings, however it remains to do nothing, I tried install disks from 7.5.5 to 10.4, none worked. *gulp*. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Tracks Posted August 28, 2010 Share Posted August 28, 2010 Do you have an external drive you can hook up with Firewire or USB? See if it can boot that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nKrecklow Posted August 29, 2010 Author Share Posted August 29, 2010 Do you have an external drive you can hook up with Firewire or USB? See if it can boot that way. I used a external drive, but it still wouldn't boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Tracks Posted September 4, 2010 Share Posted September 4, 2010 hoookay...next step. This requires some minor eMac surgery so find a guide on how to crack one open. I will assume this will most likely fail also, but open up the eMac and press the red CUDA switch in there. Hold it in for ten seconds and then try to reboot. If that doesn't work then try to replace the hard disk and see what happens next. It needs an ATA 100 hard disk. If possible, try to put Mac OS X on there before putting it in (the easiest way is to use another PPC Mac and install it there. Then transplant). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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