Mac OS 8.x problem

  • itamae 17 Aug 2004 16:55:56 10,213 posts
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    Registered 19 years ago
    I'm at my wits' end right now (after about 30 seconds) and would appreciate some help from the knowledgeable EG forum regulars.

    We have a lonely old Powermac here at work which, well, just stopped cooperating today, and because it's actually a pretty important computer (being connected to a several 100.000€ cytometer) we would like to have the stupid thing fixed asap. Thing is, I've once owned a Mac so everyone here just assumes that I simply have to lay on my magic hands and everything's fine again.

    Now before I do the only reasonable thing and call a technician I thought I might as well ask you first: whenever I turn on the computer the smiling Mac icon appears so I assume the ROM is okay. Then the "Welcome the Mac OS" logo appears, the computer starts accessing the hard drive and about 2 seconds later an error message pops up, saying something like "blabla error type 10 bla - Restart". Disabling the extensions by holding down the shift key just results in a "bus error" type error message which sounds like a very bad sign to me.

    Hence my question: Is there a way to create a boot disk for this OS 8.x (don't know which version really, and the install CDs have been gone for a long time) Mac with some Scan/Repair tools on it? And preferably one which can be done on our office PCs? Or is this type 10 / bus error some sort of hardware failure (don't you just hate those cryptic error codes...) so I shouldn't bother?

    Thanks in advance.
  • itamae 17 Aug 2004 18:33:12 10,213 posts
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    *sigh* Cheers Hyoushi, I was afraid it would be something more complicated than the Mac equivalent of a bad hair day.

    I'll ask my colleagues if someone has a copy of Norton Utilities lying around somewhere (highly unlikely) and will call our local Mac dealer tomorrow. Hopefully they know how to fix antique computers...
  • itamae 17 Aug 2004 18:49:53 10,213 posts
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    Registered 19 years ago
    Hyoushi wrote:
    Found this after a Google.

    Oooh! Thanks, that could be useful. Sounds like an extensions error caused by faulty (external?) hardware. I just hope it isn't the cytometer or the accompanying dongle that's acting up. :-/
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