Dual Boot problems

Discussion in 'Mac Basics and Help' started by Greg Ball, Oct 30, 2006.

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  1. Greg Ball, Oct 30, 2006

    Greg Ball macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2006
    #1
    I tried to install a second sata internal drive on my Mac Quad G5 to creat a dual boot system. After restarting the mac, I did not see the second drive anywhere in disk utilities or on the desktop.

    I then removed the hard drive that came with the Mac and put the new drive in it's place. Now I only get a blinking question mark. Is that because there's nothing on the new drive so the mac doesn't know where to go for start-up? Or is there something wrong with the new drive?

    Can someone walk me through checking if this new drive is good? Would I boot drom the OSX 10.4.8 CD? then set up the drive? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
    Greg
     
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  2. mklos, Oct 30, 2006

    mklos macrumors 68000

    mklos

    Joined:
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    Location:
    My house!
    #2
    Is the hard drive even formatted? When you buy a new hard drive, its a totally blank hard drive. It doesn't matter where you bought it from, its totally blank. So you will need to format it using Disk Utility. It may show up there, but it will look kinda generic until you format it.

    Let me know if you need help formatting it. As long as the main hard drive will boot into OS X, then you don't need to boot from the installer CD to format a hard drive. Once you format it, it should show up on the desktop as a 2nd hard drive. From there you can do what you want with it. You can install OS X fresh, or using something like carbon copy cloner to copy your main hard drive directly to the new one. Its up to you to do whatever your intensions are after its formatted.
     
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  3. Greg Ball, Oct 30, 2006

    Greg Ball thread starter macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2006
    #3
    Thanks and follow-up

    Thanks for your answer.

    No the HD is not formatted. However, I don't see it in disk utilities either. To install this second hard drive here's what I did.

    I slid it into place beneath the original one, and there was a small cable/connector (7 pin) that plugged into the drive, then there was a larger cable/connecter (15pin?) attached to the same 15 pin cable that's plugged into the original hard drive. I plugged those into the new HD. Nothing showed up in disk utilities.

    My thought was to see if the drive was good, so I removed the original Hard drive and installed the new one in the top bay. Only saw blinking question mark. Would it help to install the new as the only hard, boot from the OSX CD and then format this drive? Then install OSX on it? Would both drives then show up in disk utilities and on the desktop? Thanks so much!
     
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