I managed to boot the 466MHz PowerMac3,4 from a 10.-STABLE .img dd'd to a USB flash drive; combo-drive had to be disconnected first

[Mark Millard]

Hi.

[I'm around the powermacs again for a few days...]

I repeated my earlier boot tests for 466Mhz PowerMac3,4 but with a CD instead made from the newer FreeBSD-10.0-STABLE-powerpc-powerpc64-20140608-r267232-disc1.iso and got the same during-boot hang (CAM status timeout related messages) at the same place that I earlier got with CDs made from FreeBSD-10.0-STABLE-powerpc-powerpc64-20140528-r266807-disc1.iso.

(Note: The same CD boots the PowerMac4,1 (iMac G3), PowerMac7,2 (G5 dual) and the 7,11 (G5 quad) that I tried just fine.)

So I tried instead booting from a USB flash made from FreeBSD-10.0-STABLE-powerpc-20140608-r267232-memstick.img ("boot usb1/disk at 1:2,\\:tbxi" in open firmware). Same problems and the same hangup at the same place.

So I tried disconnecting the ata cable for the combo-drive from the 466MHz PowerMac3,4 logic board and booting from the USB flash drive again. This configuration booted fine. No messages about CAM status timeouts or other such.

Mac OS X 10.4 and its installation media work fine, including with the combo-drive (a Hitachi DVD-ROM GD-7000 drive). The same for lubuntu 14.04 and its installation media. FreeBSD seems to have some problem with handling the combo-drive, or at least the 10.0-STABLE installer media does. (I've not installed FreeBSD yet and so have more testing to do.)


(The 733Mhz PowerMac3,4 was not so lucky: It hangs like before either way, even when booted from the same USB flash drive. It never did produce CAM status related messages and still does not. Because it still hangs when its hitachi DVD-ROM (combo-drive) is disconnected the current issue would appear to be something different for it. Again Mac OS X 10.4 and lubuntu 14.04 and their installation media work fine on the 733MHz PowerMac3,4, including with the combo-drive.)

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Mark Millard
markmi at dsl-only.net