Missing 'Network Disc' on Blue/White G3

[David]

Greetings from the UK  

I've been given a Blue and White G3 - because the previous owner was given it by a previous previous owner - neither of whom could get it to boot up although it had previously worked OK whilst being part of a professionally installed "network".

In the belief that the Hard Drive was faulty, the most recent previous owner has fitted a new 60gb Barracuda without any success.

So, I grabbed it for free in the knowledge that I'd probably be able to use the Barracuda elsewhere.

However, curiosity drove me to try to the G3. Of course, nothing happened; until I tried to start-up from my OS 9.0 CD.

It worked OK and has allowed me to de-partition and initialise the drive using Drive Setup.

I have managed to install the basic OS9 system but the machine still won't boot.

The 'Startup Disk' Control Panel on my OS9 CD clearly shows the OS9 CD and the Barracuda as start-up options (even though the Barracuda won't work!) PLUS there is another option - an alias of "Network Disk"!

Huh???   Where did that come from?

What is the "Network Disk"? If what I'm seeing really is an alias, how do I get rid of it??

As I have completely purged the Barracuda, is there some hardware attached within the G3 which is telling it that there is a network connected?

Does this all make sense?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards to EVERYONE

David L.

[tacit]

All computers manufactured after (and including) the B&W G3 will show "Network Disk" in the Startup Disk control panel. What does it mean? It means the computer can boot from a network.

Here's how it works:

You put a computer running MacOS X Server on the network. You configure oS X Server as a "boot server." When the networked computer boots, it does not load the system file from its hard disk, it loads the system file from the OS X network server.

The idea behind this is that a person running a large corporate network would not have to keep updating the system folder on all the computers on the network. He would set up OS X server, and all the computers on the network would boot from that. If he wants to upgrade the operating system on all the computers on the network, he just upgrades the OS on the server. Since the computers all boot from the server, that means they all run the upgraded OS.

Also, in certain high-security settings (think government black ops or supersecret research projects), you can set up your computers so that they don't even have a hard disk! They boot from the OS X server computer, they save files on the OS X server computer, they don't even have a hard disk or a CD-ROM installed in them, so nobody can copy software onto or off of them without the network owner knowing about it.

In any event, all systems capable of booting from a network server will show the network volume in the Startup Disk control panel. Just ignore it.

I can't answer why the computer won't boot from the hard drive, but you may need to partition the drive so that the first pyysical partition is less than 8GB, and install the operating system on that partition, to solve the problem. (Apple claims this is necessary only with tray-loading iMacs. I don't believe it--I think it's necessary with some B&W G3 systems too. I have an 80GB Maxtor hard drive in my B&W, and I had to partition it in order to get it to work.)

[David]

Many Thanks, Tacit:

I'll let you know how I get on with your advice:

Regards

David L.

[David]

The basic problem with my machine was the jumper setting on the Barracuda.

The G3 had come out of a network and the HD was still set to slave mode. This explains why the non-existant 'network disk' kept appearing in the startup disc control panel when I booted from the OS 9 CD. The machine was still thinking that it was still a "slave" on a network.

However, when I corrected the jumper setting, even though the 'network disk' option had disappered, I still couldn't load OS 9 until I had first loaded OS 8.5 - the original OS for the G3 B/W - and then upgraded.

So, all problems solved and I now have a "new" G3 which has cost me virtually nothing!

Thanks again

Regards

David L.

[kelly]

Cool. Thanks for the info.

[Bernie]

Hmm Nice. Come back soon

[tacit]

QUOTE(david.j.lincoln @ Jun 13 2003, 11:27 PM)

The G3 had come out of a network and the HD was still set to slave mode. This explains why the non-existant 'network disk' kept appearing in the startup disc control panel when I booted from the OS 9 CD. The machine was still thinking that it was still a "slave" on a network.

 The hard drive should work whether it is set to "master" or "slave."

There is no such a thing as being a "slave to a network." When a hard drive is set to "slave," that just means it is set to "ID 1" (a "Master" drive is "ID 0"). The terminology "master" and "slave" is still used for historical reasons, but has nothing to do with one device "controlling" another device (and certainly nothing to do with networks at all).

You will only see the Network Disk in the Startup Disk control panel if you are using OS 9. The ability to tell a computer to boot from a network server running MacOS Server was introduced about the same time OS 9 was introduced. Since you installed OS 8 on your computer, you no longer see the option to boot from a network disk.

[Gary S]

QUOTE

There is no such a thing as being a "slave to a network."

Try telling that to Albert Finney