[rescue] Odd Mac startup problem

[Micah R L]

I think if you get into open firmware and type
setenv boot-command "begin ['] boot catch 1000 ms cr again"
that will fix it. (I found that bit of advice on the
linux-on-oldworld_powerpc documentation.)

Phil Stracchino wrote:

>Hoping for a little troubleshooting advice from the Mac folks.
>
>We have a 7300/180 upgraded with a Sonnet G3/300 card.  About 328MB of
>RAM, two hard disks (I just put the second one in tonight), CDROM,
>running MacOS 9.1 (or 9.1.2, I don't recall offhand).  I have the cache
>speed pushed up somewhat to 3:2 instead of the default 2:1, but it
>appears fully stable at that speed.
>
>It has a consistent weird behavior that has been going on for at least a
>month and I cannot for the life of me find the cause.  Power it on, all
>the appropriate indicator lights come on, the hard drive spins up
>(actually, now, both hard drives spin up), but it doesn't boot.  Zip,
>nada, no sad mac, not even a vertical-blank signal to the monitor -- it
>just sits there.  Shut it off and immediately power it back on again,
>and on the second try, it boots flawlessly every time.
>
>Anyone have any suggestions? About the only thing I can think of is some
>kind of flakiness on the boot disk, perhaps a stiction problem in the
>head actuator.  But I've never seen a stiction problem that acts like
>this before, or this consistently.
>  
>