This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on March 12, 2002). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.
Ever wondered just what ‘geeking out’ entails? Some nights it’s diving into whatever the geek’s code of choice is (HTML and CSS for me), other nights it’s more hardware based. Well, tonight I had a problem with my primary work Mac, and kept a log of what I was doing as I went along. Feel free to take a look if you’d like….
- 17:15: home from work. Dock isn’t responding correctly – click on it work fine, but magnification isn’t. Decide to restart box to see if that helps.
- 17:20: restarting results in freeze – arrow frozen in top left corner of main screen against grey backgrouns. Panic button reboot.
- 17:22: flashing question mark on floppy icon w/’clicking’ sounds coming from one drive or another. Panic button reboot.
- 17:24: same as above, but after a few seconds the OS 9 drive kicks in and the machine boots to OS 9. Not an auspicious sign.
- 17:30: haven’t booted into OS 9 since the install. Going through all the ‘first boot’ crap (setup assistants and the like).
- 17:32: run Software Update to make sure the OS 9 side is up to date (what the hell, I’m here anyway). Installs CarbonLib 1.5 and Mac OS 9.2.2 update.
- 17:38: “An error occurred during installation. Please view the log for detailed information. [RESTART]” Shit.
- 17:38: restart.
- 17:39: flashing disk w/?. OS 9 drive kicks in.
- 17:42: “About this computer…” reports 9.2.2 installed.
- 17:43: no 9.2.2 or CarbonLib install logs in root level of OS 9 drive.
- 17:44: use Disk First Aid (OS 9) to verify OS 9 drive. Appears to be OK.
- 17:45: use Disk First Aid (OS 9) to verify OS X drive. Invalid BTree Header, 0, 0. MountCheck found minor errors. Volume Bit Map needs minor repair, 4, 186. Drive needs to be repaired (no shit).
- 17:48: start Disk First Aid (OS 9) on repairing OS X drive.
- 17:55: OS X drive repaired successfully.
- 17:55: verifying again to be sure.
- 17:58: verifies as OK.
- 17:58: Startup Disk app still crashes out (known conflict with whatever SCSI card I’ve got). This started w/9.1, why hasn’t it been fixed yet?
- 18:00: restart…crossing fingers. No clue which drive it’s going to try to start from — or how much success it’ll have.
- 18:00: flashing disk w/?. Clicking. OS 9 drive kicks in.
- 18:03: re-verifying OS X drive with Disk First Aid (OS 9).
- 18:06: drive still verifies as OK.
- 18:06: re-verify OS 9 drive. Verifies as OK.
- 18:09: shutdown.
- 18:13: remove SCSI card (Adaptec AHA-2930B, sticker on BIOS chip says “BIOS 293A (c) 1997 v1.1” — maybe there’s a flash upgrade somewhere that might cure the OS 9/Startup Disk crash? I’ll check that later. (Later — this page lists drivers for “Microsoft Windows 2000 | Microsoft Windows Millennium | Microsoft Windows 98 | Microsoft Windows NT | Microsoft Windows 95 | Microsoft DOS” only. Card listed as not made but still supported. Shit — looks like I need a new SCSI card.)
- 18:14: boot machine.
- 18:15: flashing disk w/?. Clicking. OS 9 drive kicks in.
- 18:18: open Startup Disk (now that the SCSI card is removed). According to Startup Disk, the OS 9 drive was selected as the startup drive. Change startup drive to OS X drive, OS X system folder. Reboot.
- 18:19: happy mac, but booting OS 9.2. WTF? Shit – booted from OS 9 system folder on OS X drive rather than OS X system folder. Close, but no cigar.
- 18:21: my bad. Selected wrong system folder. Really select OS X system folder this time, reboot.
- 18:22: happy mac. OS X rainbow cursor. Good start.
- 18:23: successful boot into OS X. Logging in.
- 18:25: open OS X Disk Utility — it only sees one of the two ATA drives in the machine (the one with OS X and OS 9 installed on seperate partitions) — the OS 9 only drive doesn’t register. Great. I also can’t even verify the OS X partition because it’s the startup disk. The OS 9 version of Disk Repair will do this, but the OS X version won’t. Crap.
- 18:29: shut down machine to re-install SCSI card, decide to shut down and then restart to see if that much works.
- 18:30: reboot.
- 18:30: happy mac, OS X rainbow cursor…looks like we’re booting again.
- 18:32: successful boot and login. Shut down to really re-install SCSI card.
- 18:33: while I’m here, decide to swap positions of display cards to see if that helps problem w/DVD Player 3.1 not launching.
- 18:37: crap. Can’t switch positions of display cards. ATI Rage 128 has different slot configuration than Twin Turbo 128. Decide to just install ATI Rage 128 (3 long PCI slots, one short…ATI Rage 128 goes in the short…I should know the difference between the slots, can’t think of it right now). Leave SCSI card out for now, also remove oddball “Miro Computer Products” video card that a friend gave me (no idea where it’s from, what the official name is, where drivers may be found, whether it supports OS X, or even if it supports Mac, though was told it came from a Mac. Has Din-8 (?) audio (in? out? no clue), RCA Video in and out, S-Video in and out).
- 18:43: boot machine w/just ATI Rage 128 video card, no other PCI cards.
- 18:45: successful boot and login. One monitor. Wierd. Not used to that anymore.
- 18:46: launch DVD Player. Success! So…great. To get DVD functionality, I need to remove one of my monitors? That wasn’t the case before the 10.1.3 update. Crapola…thanks, Apple.
- 18:47: shut down to install Twin Turbo 128 video card.
- 18:50: get curious. Twin Turbo has 2 video connectors (1 old-style Apple monitor connector, 1 standard VGA connector). Remove ATI Rage 128 from machine, switch monitor to VGA connector on Twin Turbo.
- 18:52: boot machine w/just Twin Turbo video card.
- 18:53: appears to be booting. Display all farked up. Color, geometry, resolution, all very off. Looks to be 640×480 resolution, major green tint, bowed in on sides. But — works. Interesting.
- 18:55: open System Preferences to see if changing display settings will do anything. Sure, it does — clicking on the ‘Displays’ panel causes System Preferences to “unexpectedly quit”.
- 18:57: for shits and giggles, open DVD Player. “This machine configuration is not supported. The application will now quit.”
- 18:57: shutdown to restore 2-video card setup.
- 18:59: boot machine w/both video cards installed, but with only one monitor attached, to the ATI Rage 128.
- 19:00: booting, display back to normal (color, resolution, geometry, all normal).
- 19:02: launch DVD Player. “This machine configuration is not supported.” Definitely dependent on number of video cards installed, not number of monitors attached.
- 19:03: shut down to reattach 2nd monitor and reinstall SCSI card (finally…).
- 19:05: boot machine w/both video cards and SCSI card…crap, forgot to reattach 2nd monitor.
- 19:06: hmm…I have Shutdown disabled in the Login panel, so I have to log in and wait for my login items to launch before I can shut down the ‘puter again. Is there an OS X equivalent of the OS 9 shift startup that will disable login items?
- 19:07: shutdown to reattach the fershluggin 2nd monitor.
- 19:08: reboot w/both video cards, SCSI card, and both monitors.
- 19:11: successful boot and login w/both monitors and all drives. So why does this SCSI card work fine under OS X but cause problems under OS 9? Grrrr…. Left that oddball video card out until I can find more information on it. In any case, I’m back up and running again. Still not sure why Dock magnification wasn’t working earlier (it is now), nor why/how my OS X drive got farked up enough to cause me that many problems. Time to backup and cross my fingers…may have a dying drive. What fun. But…for now…all up and running again. Roughly 2 hours.