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Got a PowerMAc G4 Quicksilver for free, bad controllers

1

11miles

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 20, 2008
42
0
Slovenia (for now)
Hi,

using a MBP in a target disk mode i got the G4 to build, but on its own, the folder with the question mark appears blinking...

I want to know how do i get on lookign for the right PCi IDe card? Would any do?

Is the Fw400 Card a better option? I guess putting a system disk in an external through firewire isn't gonna do it?
But getting a PCI firewire would? is it faster?

Am not to sure what i want to do with the machine once i get it working. Maybe put it at my folks house, about time the got to learn the MAC OS x. hehe

TIA for the help,


matt
 
What makes you so sure the controllers are bad ?

The blinking ? mark just means that the machine cannot find a bootable system folder...... have you tried to boot from an OS CD and/or re-installing the OS, or even replacing the HD ?
 
yep checked everything....

wont boot form Cd, changed HD system disc...

Then i tried if it boots up using my MBP in target disk mode. jsut to see if ti works.
And it did, through firewire, no problem at all.

do you think there is another problem? please, tell me

TIA
 
If the disks are accessible via FireWire in target disk mode, the controllers are OK. In target disk mode, disks are still attached to internal IDE controller and the computer acts like a converter between IDE and FireWire. So I think your problem lies elsewhere. I suggest cmd+opt+p+r to zap pram - or doing a total reset with this procedure.
 
Hold these keys on the keyboard, and while still holding them power on the computer. it should chime, and you should keep holding until the computer reboots automatically (a few seconds). This command resets the internals (or should do so).

Get an OS X install disc that would actually work (no, the disc supplied with an Intel Mac will not) and install it as per instructions.
 
THanks so mch for all the info...

here are the results.

I held the keys down while booting (even if i didn't it did chime, but after 15 seconds of black screen the disc was starting to spin slower, i could hear that, and the folder question mark popped up) same results.
It rebooted and once again and once again... when i let go of the keys the folder/question mark appeared.
hard reset with PMU also yielded same results. None.

pressing i dont know exactly which key got me to ROM boot. nothing significantly changed.
i was able to get the disk connected via internal IDE in the powermac through firewire in Target disk mode with y MBP.
Unaware that i shouldnt install Leopard on it, i did. First i had to do a repartation of the drive because the disk used to be in a RAID. the install went smoothly, but didnt help the booting however.

I would appreciate if you bear with me, with some more info and possibilities to try out.
You know these things more and i want to learn.

Will try to do a new install of Tiger, but still the initial booting is where the problem is.
What if the battery is bad?
 
hiya...

Umm.. I don't know what you've tried.. but have you tried this?

Did you check the drive you've installed?
Is the Jumper set to Master or Slave? Where is the drive on the ribbon cable? Depending on the Mac and the cable used.. it might be worth while messing about with the drive's jumpers (remember where the original is). Having the wrong setting on the drive could cause the Mac not to see the drive.


Did you try booting into Tiger from the Installer disk?

Just insert the DVD into the drive, power up and press 'n' hold "C" (forcing the system to boot from the optical drive)

Once in the desktop, instead of proceeding with an installation, goto one of the menus and load up the disk utility application. From there you should beable to see the system's build-in HD, check it's condition, format and prep the drive. If the build in drive doesn't appear in the drive list (left of the application window), it could be dead or faulty.

Let us know what happens...
 
opening a dvd tray with mac not running was fun let me tell you... but i got it in.

i didnt have to press c to boot from dvd, after few blinks of folder question mark action Mac got started booting form dvd.

2 minutes later, i got the MAC OS X 10.4 installer. running.

i got to step 5 where i had to pick a location for the install. No disks...
So i restarted and plugged the external through USB. it showed ut said i cannot install on it.

any ideas?
 
big success...

at first i wasnt able to install on external hd. installer said i cant. so i didnt.

so i took the original drive out and hook it up on internal ID like i did so many times before. Didnt work.
I could not install on the external disc for some reason.

so i opened disc utility, this time through installer on the powermac. Chose the disc and erased the data on it. closed the disk utility, and went through install again. this time the drive was there.

installed it, works...


strangely i think that the discs were the problem from start and of course like you said not the controllers.

The discs were once in a RAID setup and maybe that didnt suit them very much...

off we go now, finding the environment...

thank you guys...

best, matt
 
i cant install Leopard on Power PC quicksilver G4.

I have read all the instructions and how to, workarounds...

The situation is, that because of the weird disc /controllers theG4 doesn't read any disc anymore...

all i can do is install the Mac OS x 10.2. would like to have an OS update though..

Neither Firewire Discs aren't recognized, nor USB. i thought its the bad connection, but keyboard works if i plug it in the USB.

Any comments?
 
i had to go to disc utiliy to realize, taht cant run an intel formatted disc on 10.3.9. or earlier...

The thing is i formated one partition on GUID and antoehr on MAC OS X Extednen (HFS+) and still the quicksilver couldnt recognize any drive.

am doing a clone partition now. then format the disc on te quicksilver in the Fw box again and make a sparse image clone back to the G4 formatted disc, hopefully working...
 
success...

quicksilver with leopard. boots a lot quicker than 10.2. actually.

i have a another very drastic problem, that i thought i will get rid of with a clean install of the new OS.

not likely.

i will start a new thread here, but in a few words. it crashes and wants to restart very often, even if idle.

anyone knows the cause of it?
 
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