eMac Won't Boot To Hard Drive - Flashing Folder

[Dino1956]

I did have this eMac working with this Hard Drive months ago. Now I just get the Folder with the Flashing icon at Startup. So I installed OSX Tiger on a Firewire External Drive & it Works perfectly running from the FW HD. The Internal Hard Drive then shows up on Desktop. I run Disc Permissions & Verifications on the Internal Drive & everything comes up Perfect. It just won't Boot to the Internal Hard Drive. I even used Super Duper to make a Clone of the Firewire Hard Drive that is running, but Still I get the Flashing Folder with The Finder Face, when I unplug the Firewire Drive & attempt to boot from Internal HD. Any clue? Thank you in advance.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

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[richardtj]

Has the OS on the internal drive been upgraded from classic to OS X? If so, the HDD in the eMac may have been partitioned incorrectly as it needs to be partitioned as MacOS X extended format in order to be bootable.

[Dino1956]

richardtj, No. The drive was formatted correctly. This would be a Fresh install of Tiger. I even went so far as to format the drive in Disk Utility, being that I can still see and still access the drive when booting from the Firewire Hard Drive. Thanks.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956

[macmanmacman]

You cannot access the internal hard drive two things have happened i have had two emacs

and i have good news and bad.

Good: the hard drive just died and you need to replace it simple to do just go to www.ifixit.com full tutorial there.

Bad you might have a corrupted hard drive boot sector this happens with the stock seagate hard drive that comes in the emac or most seagates from that time period...

Sorry to say it can also be a third item your capacitors could be going out as well hope is not this

[Dino1956]

Don't think it's the Hard Drive. Like I said, booting to Firewire Drive the Internal Drive Checks out OK in Disc Utility.
But I'm going to guess your second "Bad" explanation is correct. I think I corrupted the Boot Sector. Question: if I'm able to wipe the drive clean with Disc Utility, how would the boot sector be corrupt? Could it still be corrupted?
It's not the Capacitors. Again, eMac works perfect when booting to the Firewire External. Runs perfectly.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956

[macmanmacman]

the boot sector has to be physically replaced in order to do this you have to remove the hard drive from the emac place it in a windows machine find a ms-dos boot disk run this command.

fdisk /s /b

replaces the boot sector then place back into the emac and start again

but it will happen again if you have a seagate in that machine

there is another solution if you like to here get a sata to ide adapter from amazon they will run you about 5 to 10 dollers max and you can install a nice 350 gig to 500 gig in that model of emac and it will perk up your machine nicely

[Dino1956]

Cool. All very interesting & a lot of great info.. But I'm not about to open this eMac up. It's an older Mac that I was trying to get up & running. These eMacs are a pain to get not. I'll pass & use it with the Firewire External. Thanks for the help.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956

[Dino1956]

Also, you say it's a Seagate thing? Why just Seagate? That Sucks!
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956

[macmanmacman]

i wish i knew seagates earlier ones have firmware fixes for the hard drives but the firmware fix can only be applied if you are using a windows machine to apply it it was suppose to fix this issue but it never worked and still doesn't work this is why i buy western digital samsung or hitachi

[Dino1956]

I see. Thanks for all the help.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956

[devo]

Off topic. Did ever have any of the "raster shift" issues with your eMac's display? I'm just curious. It's really why I got rid of mine and switched to the Mac mini after they came out.

[Dino1956]

Never had any problems with the eMac. First issue is this one.
_________________
iMac 27" 3.06 8GB ATI 4670 1TB HD
Mac Mini 1.83 Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 80 GB
Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz i5 8 GB Ram 500 GB HD
Power Mac G5 1.8 GHz
Apple TV 3rd Gen
Time Capsule 1st Gen 2TB

http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=Dino1956