Trouble with new G5 Tower

[olsend81]

Hello I am new to this site. I just purchased a G5 tower from craigslist for $30 but it doesnt have the OS installed. I downloaded 10.5 and put the DVD in and tried holding down "c" so it would boot from the disc. The machine read the disc and spit the DVD out. I have tried many different versions of OSX but the machine keeps spitting the DVD's out. I finally called apple and talked them into sending the the system restore disc (for free) and am waiting for that in the mail as we speak. I was curious if the disc apple sends me gets ejected without loading can I just replace the super drive with any other DVDRW drive or does it have to be a superdrive. Also any suggestions on why my other discs wouldnt work?

[MisterKeeks]

Try holding option at startup and selecting the disk.

[olsend81]

Originally Posted by MisterKeeks

Try holding option at startup and selecting the disk.

I have tried that and it wont even give me that option it just goes to a screen with the flashing file folder. Could it be an issue with the DVD drive since I have tried many a OS?

[cocacolakid]

Originally Posted by olsend81

I have tried that and it wont even give me that option it just goes to a screen with the flashing file folder. Could it be an issue with the DVD drive since I have tried many a OS?

It certainly could be. Do you have another drive you could swap for it and see?

Also, which exact G5 do you have? Is your OS DVD on a dual layer disc? Just wondering if the drive might be so old it can't real DL discs. I don't think any of the G5 Power Macs made before Spring 2005 came with standard DVD drives that could read DL discs. At least according to Everymac.com's system specific info. I do know that swapping out the DVD drive on my G5 Power Mac to a newer DVD drive fixed the problem for me a few months ago. I have a DP 2.0 Ghz which was sold from Summer 2003 until Summer 2004. Everymac.com's stats for that machine does not show it can read DL DVD's, and I couldn't get mine to read a DL disc until I swapped it for a newer DVD drive I had laying around and it worked right away.

However, it could also be a bad hard drive. Or even a bad connection with the hard drive cable or a bad cable (not likely but possible). I'd check the cable and make sure it's tightly connected to the hard drive and logic board just to be sure. (ground yourself first)

[olsend81]

I will check the DVD's im not sure if they are DL. I figure I will wait till the system restore disc comes in the mail and see if that works, that should be the ultimate test. Im pretty sure its an early 2005 dual core G5 didnt have exact specs becuase I havent been able to load the OS yet. Is there a way to do a search with a serial number?

[cyberghoser1]

If its DL, maybe your drive cannot read 'em, try a sparseimage (single layer dvd) of Leopard, you can find that nowadays easily, burn the sparseimage onto a single dvd and try to boot from it.

[cocacolakid]

Originally Posted by olsend81

...Im pretty sure its an early 2005 dual core G5 didnt have exact specs becuase I havent been able to load the OS yet. Is there a way to do a search with a serial number?

Sure.

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

or

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/

[hwojtek]

Originally Posted by olsend81

The machine read the disc and spit the DVD out.

Seems like a dead DVD drive to me. Swap for any IDE DVD drive you have around (make sure the master/slave setting on the rear of the replacement drive matches the original), reboot. This is not unusual for the DVD drive to fail in these machines, they're fairly old, after all. Mine used to boot, but failed mid-install, so I just put another drive and everything was back to normal.

[olsend81]

Got the disc and had to get a new DVD RW from goodwill. Everything is installed and works great. Not to shabby for a computer that cost me a grand total f 34.99. Thanks for the help!