iMac G4 - hard drive not showing

[Applespider]

A customer returned a 17" iMac g4 some months ago (it's out of warranty though) saying that it had never worked. For whatever reason, questions weren't asked back then and since our IT dept in the office refuses to touch Macs, the iMac has now ended up at the desk of a Mac colleague to see if it's usable for any purpose.

When we turn it on, it chimes but does nothing else. We put in the original installer DVD that came with it - and it will start from that but there's no HD to choose to install OS X onto. Since there's no OS on it, the hardware test CD doesn't work either. We're considering bringing a Firewire cable from home (our IT department don't do Firewire apparently) and trying target disc mode but if there's no hard drive showing, then we're not convinced it will work.

Any clues or suggestions? The only thing I can think of is to take Monday afternoon off work and take it to the Apple Store but I'm not convinced the boss will go for it!

 

[toontra]

A customer returned a 17" iMac g4 some months ago (it's out of warranty though) saying that it had never worked. For whatever reason, questions weren't asked back then and since our IT dept in the office refuses to touch Macs, the iMac has now ended up at the desk of a Mac colleague to see if it's usable for any purpose.

When we turn it on, it chimes but does nothing else. We put in the original installer DVD that came with it - and it will start from that but there's no HD to choose to install OS X onto. Since there's no OS on it, the hardware test CD doesn't work either. We're considering bringing a Firewire cable from home (our IT department don't do Firewire apparently) and trying target disc mode but if there's no hard drive showing, then we're not convinced it will work.

Any clues or suggestions? The only thing I can think of is to take Monday afternoon off work and take it to the Apple Store but I'm not convinced the boss will go for it!

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but have you tried opening it up to see if there is a HD at all? If there is (or if there isn't) try a new one & see if it mounts when booting from the DVD.

 

[Applespider]

Sorry - should have said that we haven't yet opened it up. Lacking an appropriate screwdriver here in the office - the ones we have don't fit. That's another thing to bring in next week - you can see why taking it to the Genius Bar is appealing!

Just figured I'd ask in case someone went 'ah, but you need to do x'

 

[toontra]

Sorry - should have said that we haven't yet opened it up. Lacking an appropriate screwdriver here in the office - the ones we have don't fit. That's another thing to bring in next week - you can see why taking it to the Genius Bar is appealing!

Just figured I'd ask in case someone went 'ah, but you need to do x'

Ah - that'll be your first step then. Swap out the drive. That should narrow down the problem quite a bit. If the new drive mounts then you're sorted. My money would be on a dead (or missing) drive.

If not it's likely to be a problem with the bus cabling or logic board - then it would be Genius Bar time, but not just yet!

 

[pncc]

Sorry - should have said that we haven't yet opened it up. Lacking an appropriate screwdriver here in the office - the ones we have don't fit. That's another thing to bring in next week - you can see why taking it to the Genius Bar is appealing!

Just figured I'd ask in case someone went 'ah, but you need to do x'

Boot from the install DVD again and click on the Installer menu. Inside that should be a tab for Disk Utility. That should tell you if there is a usable drive there. maybe it is just badly corrupted and needs reformatting.

 

[toontra]

What happened with this, Applespider?

 

[Applespider]

Target mode didn't work and IT are reluctant to hand over thermal paste etc to non-techs so since we have another couple of Mac with dud PSUs, they're going to contract all 3 problems out to a local Apple repair specialist.

Pity, I was quite looking forward to getting my hands dirty so to speak