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I have this old Bondi Blue iMac I was given for free. I was running 
NetBSD 1.5 on it pretty succesfully, but about 6 months ago I wanted to 
repartition it, so I blew it away. I then forgot about it for awhile.

Somehow, in the interim, it has stopped booting most MacOS CDs. I have 
quite a few old MacOS system CDs, and the only ones I can seem to boot 
are:

MacOS 10.0.3 install
MacOS 10.0.4 install
MacOS 10.1 install

The systems I couldn't boot include: 7.6.1, 8.5.1, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2., 
the 10.1 update, and the 10.2 update. The resolution changes as if it 
will boot, but then turns into a disk with a question-mark, and the CD 
tray insolently spits out the CD. If I try to force the issue using 
"boot cd:,\\:tbxi" from OF then I get a bunch of crazy text and a 
strange Mac ROM logo, but it still fails (if anyone is interested I can 
send the text, but it's not my primary concern). These CDs work fine on 
my *other* Bondi Blue iMac (which I've had since it came out, and is 
running MacOS 8.6).

Interestingly, I have no problem booting either the Darwin install CD 
or the NetBSD install CDs (via boot cd:,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd.macppc). 
But as I understand it, the NetBSD installer cannot properly partition 
of3 disks.

Anyway, none of the systems I can boot will let me create A/UX Root, 
Swap, or Usr partitions (which is how I have generally partitioned of3 
machines to install NetBSD on them-- I'm also currently running NetBSD 
on a 7600/132).

While this list would probably be useful for diagnosing the problem 
(possibly a dying CD-ROM drive or some more obscure problem), I am more 
immediately interested in trying to install NetBSD 1.6 on this machine. 
Does anyone know of a version of sysinstall that can handle the 
partitioning for an of3 system, or some other utility I can use? I'd 
rather not set up netbooting, but I do understand that that might still 
work (I could try netbooting OS 8.6 or something, then partition using 
a version of Disk Utility or Apple HD SC Setup or something).

The real problem with the iMacs is that they only have one hard drive, 
and you can't boot off of any external devices (except ethernet), so if 
you have trouble booting the MacOS system CDs, things get sort of 
tough... anyway, any ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,

-- Erik


Erik Andreas Osheim
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