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hartwig

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2012
35
1
I've recently acquired this iMac G5 :D

It has no HDD and no optical drive :(

When I connect the power cable, the first LED lights up but the second LED just blinks

Is there any way I can boot up this mac with an external HDD?
 

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If you have an external hard drive formatted with an AMP partition type and HFS+ with an installation of Leopard on it, you can boot from it. Plug it in and press the power button. The iMac should search external drives for a bootable OS since the internal drive is missing. If you can, connect the external drive via FireWire.

You may get more help by having this thread moved to the PowerPC section of MacRumors. To have it moved, click the report triangle next to your first post and request a thread move to the PowerPC section.
 
If you have an external hard drive formatted with an AMP partition type and HFS+ with an installation of Leopard on it, you can boot from it. Plug it in and press the power button. The iMac should search external drives for a bootable OS since the internal drive is missing. If you can, connect the external drive via FireWire.

You may get more help by having this thread moved to the PowerPC section of MacRumors. To have it moved, click the report triangle next to your first post and request a thread move to the PowerPC section.

What's "AMP partition type and HFS+"?

And the capacitors appear fine
 
APM or Apple Partition Map is the partition type that PowerPC Macs use. Intell Macs use the GUID type and most Windows computers use the MBR or Master Boot Record type. HFS+ is the filesystem that Mac OS X uses.
 
APM or Apple Partition Map is the partition type that PowerPC Macs use. Intell Macs use the GUID type and most Windows computers use the MBR or Master Boot Record type. HFS+ is the filesystem that Mac OS X uses.

Can you walk me through?

Like step by step on what I should do to successfully boot from my external HDD
 
Can you walk me through?

Like step by step on what I should do to successfully boot from my external HDD

If possible to make things easier, remove the external hard drive from it's shell/casing and if required use a bracket to mount in into the case. Then connect with a SATA cable.
You should have probably planned a bit more before commiting to purchase.
 
I just mentioned it because it appears there is chemical scaring on the copper plates of the mother board.

Don't think he has that problem.
I just opened the picture in a new tab and enlarged it, the Caps seem to be fine, no bulging.


_____________________

Optical drives are cheap on Ebay, or from china, I ordered one a few years ago, shouldn't be more than about $20-25.
But first try to get it to boot.
Do you know someone with an external dvd drive, if so borrow it and try to boot from the install disk, that is, do you have the install disks, if not it would be bit harder.
Are there any people around you with macs, if so ask them if you can boot of their Laptop, must be a PPC though, I am not 100% sure but if you put that PPC computer in Target disk mode it should be possible to boot of that one while connected through a firewire cable, again I am not sure if this works.

Simplest way is to get an external DVD drive and boot from Install disk.

The second light blinking is probably due to the fact that there is no disk to boot from, so don't worry too much yet.

EDIT:Just Googled a drive, about 8 dollar but I would suggest better ones than that, this is not a super drive.

Ebay Optical drive

EDIT 2: Or this one second hand, don't know though 100% if fits, most of the time they are all the same.

Superdrive secondhand


EDIT 3: More on the internal LEDS(Apple site)
 
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To help you even more.

Are you having problems with your Apple iMac G5 17 and 20 inch consumer, university, or student models? Does your iMac turn off by itself? Are you seeing strange graphics on the video screen? Is it to the point where it doesn’t even turn on anymore? Is it running hot and the fans sound like a vacuum cleaner?

There's a link in the above about power issues as well but I will say here again, depends on the model though, if it's an isight imac this does NOT apply:

iMac G5: Troubleshooting when your computer won't turn on


And, next time if you need help please include the model number, without it we just have to guess, if we know the model number we know the year, especially the first iMac G5's had Caps and Power supply problems.
 
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