G5 server help!!!

[kittenmilk]

I saved a g5 server and 7tb RAID from the garbage and it was password protected. It only has one hard drive bay (in the server) and no optical drive. i have two xserve install disks (saved from an identical fate) but no way to get them to the server. at this point i have reformatted the hard drive (journaled) so it is free of any data. am i screwed without an external optical drive.

 

[AdrianK]

What you can do is restore an image of each disk to two different partitions on a firewire hard drive and boot off that. If you don't have a FW HDD, it would be much cheaper to get a new optical drive (you can get them for $18).

 

[kittenmilk]

thanks adriank i think i'll go that route. how would i boot from an external optical drive? is there a command upon startup, and will the erased hard drive cause any interference with the fresh install. right now when i boot up i only get a file icon with a question mark.

 

[AdrianK]

External should be FireWire, though people have reported success with USB optical drives. I'd personally go with FW since you know it will work. Earlier I misunderstood and thought this was a regular G5 you were using as a server, my apologies. External drives will cost a lot more than internals.

To boot: holding C during boot is for booting from an internal optical drive, I guess it would be the same for externals(?). Either that or you'd need to hold alt/option during boot, then select the Mac OS X disk.

I honestly don't jack about RAID or how OS X handles it Not all G5 Xserves have hardware RAID, so chances are you can go to disk utility from utilities option in the menu bar (when you boot the OS X disc) and configure RAID however you want.

 

[kittenmilk]

Thanks, picked up a firewire optical drive and booted holding option O and selected the optical. worked like a charm. thanks again, regards.