Hey there dudez.

I am happy as a whatever 'cause I just got my new
PowerMac G3 350Mhz!
I ordered a DVD-RAM with it and got it with 448Mb of
RAM for €120, with a 10Gb HD.

I wanted to install Tiger on it, but at first it wouldn't
boot into any OS, even with a disk. Then I tried it with
a 6Gb HD from my iMac and it booted into Mac OS 9.
Now it won't read my Tiger install CD (or any other DVD
for that matter).
This sucks major amounts of ass, since I want to abso-
lutely run Tiger on this machine, and probably OC it to
400 or 450 (maybe even 500?) Mhz.

Any suggestions?

Uhm is it a dvd-ram drive, or a standard dvd drive? If it is as dvd-ram drive that may be the problem... I don't know how compatible a dvd-ram drive is with other dvd technologies?

[censored] LF-D111A (Panasonic), and it's a first generation drive.

The second generation drive, at least the Panasonic version of it, has a tray which looks pretty much like a standard CD drive's drawer. IIRC, the model number for that one is LF D-211 or LF D-201. Those drives will read (and write) both size DVD-RAM disks, 2.6 GB/5.2 GB and 4.7 GB/9.4 GB.

The second generatoin drive will only read other DVD media, (like a DVD-R disk someone passes along to you).

There a couple of manufacturers who are currently selling DVD drives which will read and write DVD-RAM discs along with pretty much every other DVD or CD format you can throw at it. Google will give you lists of articles about them.

hi dudes.

Thanks for the support, but I don't think it's the DVD- drive.
It is a third party drive I purchased with the system for €50
(which is actually twice the price of the entire computer itself!).

It reads CD's just fine, so I am tempted to think away from that
solution. Does anyone know what ius required to read DVD's in
OS 9? Or is it just like another optical disc?

I think my problem's with the HD, though. I couldn't use it to
install a viable system or boot up from a CD. I am now running
with a HD from my old "233" 400Mhz iMac and it's running just
peachy in OS 9.2.2.
Does anyone know if it's possible to boot the PowerMac into FireWire
disk mode and install Tiger through my mother's G5? Or doesn't
OS X recognize the cpomputer that way?

Again, help appreciated.

Bert

To install tiger on my powermac g3 I took apart my firewire external harddrive and then stuck the powermac hard drive in it. after that I booted from the tiger disk on my powerbook and installed tiger on the powermac harddrive. I then did all the setup on the powerbook. then you take the harddrive and put it in the powermac. 

correct me if i'm wrong please. But the B&W can't boot into targetmode/firewiremode, i also don't think it can boot off a firewire drive either.

I am also fairly certain smurf cannot do target mode.

Damn, that's bad.

I now have the Smurf running 9.2.2 off of the hard disk from
my iMac, and the 'faulty' drive is sitting on the bottom and is
hooked up for music storage (a job it handles perfectly).
I'm beginning to think it's got something to do with the DVD drive,
because I can't seem to read any DVD's and even some CD's
cause problems.
Maybe if I try with another optical disk drive or something... *sigh*

In the mean time, any suggestions how I can run the Tiger install
DVD without a proper DVD drive? I keep hearing a voice in my head
saying "Smurf doesn't boot off of FireWire external drive..." but I
don't know if it's true or if it is just the CIA messing with my head.

Thank for the support so far,
Bert

i tried to boot my smurf off an external FW drive... no such luck. so if you try it and are sucessful, let me knpw

macDeviant

some 3rd party optical drives wont boot a mac os at all, but still work well once the os is already on the disk.
and yes, if its a DVD-Ram, it won't read DVD-roms.

i installed tiger on many G3 b&w with apple supplied DVD-drives.
no problems at all.

dunno about booting from firewire drives or T-.mode on these machines...