External DVD drive

warix wrote:

… boot cd:,\\:tbxi will not let me boot from the external.

cd is an alias for the internal optical drive, so the boot command as given will not access other drives.
Try the following to set up the correct boot path:

1. Use the System Preferences to select your Mac OS X Install DVD as start device and restart or
   Launch the Install Mac OS X application on this DVD and tell it to restart.
   (Both methods will set the required boot path.)
2. Press and hold Command-Option-O-F until you enter the monitor — don't let your Mac start from the DVD.
3. Enter the commands as given in the first article to temporarily change the systems notion of the cpu frequency, but without the last line containing the boot command.
4. Now boot using mac-boot, which will continue the interrupted restart and boot from your DVD.

Alternatively you can modify the file fastG4.txt by exchanging the last boot line with mac-boot and just enter boot hd:\fastG4.txt at the Open Firmware prompt. This will spare you from manually entering the terse and delicate syntax of the other two lines.