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On 2003-10-30, Myriam wrote:
>
> I am working in a school and someone managed to get Linux installed on
> an imac. While this is pretty cool, it's not very useful for the
> people at the school. How can I reinstall the MAC OS?
>
> I've tried booting to the MAC OS CD by holding the c key down, but it
> doesn't seem to work.

How can linux not be useful at UC Berkeley?

Depending on how old the Open Firmware is, you may be able to use
Apple-Option-O-F to get an OF console, then specify a specific boot
device. Something like

boot cd:

may work.

You might also try holding Apple-Option on boot, which in theory should
show you all bootable partitions. If holding C doesn't work, though,
I'm not sure this will, either.

- --keith

- --
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

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In article <9a6d89aa.0310301317.458ccb03@posting.google.com>,
myr@csm.berkeley.edu (Myriam) writes:
>
> I am working in a school and someone managed to get Linux installed on
> an imac. While this is pretty cool, it's not very useful for the
> people at the school. How can I reinstall the MAC OS?
>
> I've tried booting to the MAC OS CD by holding the c key down, but it
> doesn't seem to work.

Precisely what isn't working? Is the Mac OS install CD not booting when
you hold down the C key? Is it booting but refusing to install? Something
else?

On my iMac, which multiboots Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS X, and Linux, holding down
the C key works, so I'm not sure what the solution would be if that's not
working. (If this is the case, presumably the Mac is booting in some way
other than what I'm using, and I don't know how you'd work around it, at
least not easily.)

If the Mac OS install CD is booting but is refusing to do anything, you
could try booting Linux and using its fdisk or pdisk to wipe out all the
disk's partitions. (Different distributions call this program different
things.) When you reboot, the Mac OS installer should then see a
completely blank disk and be able to work. The danger is that if it
DOESN'T then work, you'd no longer be able to boot Linux and use the
Linux native tools to help.

--
Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

in article ju1unb-qre.ln@speaker.rodsbooks.com, Rod Smith at
rodsmith@nessus.rodsbooks.com wrote on 10/31/03 11:17 AM:

> In article <9a6d89aa.0310301317.458ccb03@posting.google.com>,
> myr@csm.berkeley.edu (Myriam) writes:
>>
>> I am working in a school and someone managed to get Linux installed on
>> an imac. While this is pretty cool, it's not very useful for the
>> people at the school. How can I reinstall the MAC OS?
>>
>> I've tried booting to the MAC OS CD by holding the c key down, but it
>> doesn't seem to work.
>
> Precisely what isn't working? Is the Mac OS install CD not booting when
> you hold down the C key? Is it booting but refusing to install? Something
> else?
>
> On my iMac, which multiboots Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS X, and Linux, holding down
> the C key works, so I'm not sure what the solution would be if that's not
> working. (If this is the case, presumably the Mac is booting in some way
> other than what I'm using, and I don't know how you'd work around it, at
> least not easily.)
>
> If the Mac OS install CD is booting but is refusing to do anything, you
> could try booting Linux and using its fdisk or pdisk to wipe out all the
> disk's partitions. (Different distributions call this program different
> things.) When you reboot, the Mac OS installer should then see a
> completely blank disk and be able to work. The danger is that if it
> DOESN'T then work, you'd no longer be able to boot Linux and use the
> Linux native tools to help.

I never had a problem with not being able to boot holding the C key down,
but something else you can do is hold the option key down and you will get
like a start up program that you will be able to boot from what ever partion
you want.

Thx Silas

Silas wrote:
>
> I never had a problem with not being able to boot holding the C key down,
> but something else you can do is hold the option key down and you will get
> like a start up program that you will be able to boot from what ever partion
> you want.

I have, when the only CD device is not an Apple-branded drive, but I doubt this is
the case with an iMac.

I bet the OpenFirmware needs to be reset.

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