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imac G5 with no OS -- please help Dad and Son
- Thread starter DadAnd12-Year-OldSon
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Hi there, boot off an external usb dvd super drive if you have one. I use an LG I got at the thrifts for a throw away price of $1.00. It's out in my garage by my bench so will grab the model number after it warms up a bit but I dont think maker matters much - just as long as it reads DL DVDs.
Another thought is to use target disc mode if you have another mac with firewire. You can use the second mac to spin up your optical media. Conversely, if it is also PowerPC, you can just clone/restore the working installation to your imacg5s hard drive.
Best of luck to you.
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Hi All -- I've been AWOL for a bit. Kid got a little tired of knocking his head against the wall, and took a break. He says he still wants to go back to it. But there is a major development. I posted on Facebook about our "adventure". An old friend from high school is a coder, does a lot with AWS and Filemaker. He said, "Um, I get computers to test with my 30+ AWS clients. I got a Mac Mini M1 for a fraction of actual cost. Problem is I just bought a new laptop. Sound like a good Christmas present?" I'm like: "You have NO IDEA." So the kid is going to have a lightly used Mac Mini M1 around the 3rd week of December. It was fun to break it to him. After all the slogging with a 2006 iMac G5. I'm sure this will open up possibilities, he thought so. Having one Mac helps when you're working with OS disks, no? I don't know if that was a "Christmas Miracle", it kinda feels like one.? I'm still going to take him thru this thread and try to do it the harder way, too. Looks like he'll keep at it but now the pressure is less.
That’s what I call a lucky kid
My friend says he gets them at 10% cost basis. In actual English, that means 10% of retail, right?That’s what I call a lucky kid
He's not doing anything wrong by giving it as a gift to a kid I assume, but I obviously don't want to get him into any trouble.
I interpret that as 10% below the normal retail price to acquire it.My friend says he gets them at 10% cost basis. In actual English, that means 10% of retail, right?
This is going to be a huge increase in performance, ease of use, and useability over the G5 system. As you stated it will be helpful to have another Mac to use in bringing up the G5 system. You'll need to obtain an external DVD drive in order to make the optical media but the M1 system should permit making a USB drive a lot easier.
Thank you for this! We do have an external DVD drive. Got it for one of those inexpensive Ideapads that doesn't have an internal DVD drive. I hadn't thought of using it. I wonder if it would have even helped before now.
Playing with these old Macs teaches good problem solving skills, but it can be a drain. It's really hard to do anything with a dead or broken Mac without an working Mac.
Trust me, I have a whole lab of Macs to support my habit.
I enjoy the challenge more than I enjoy really using the Macs. The G5 was left in the dust far too soon by Apple when they removed support for PowerPC in Mac OS X 10.6. They had a good short run, but Web 2.0 really hit them hard, they are not really good main computers anymore.
Not as much money to be made in old tech hardware, the money is in software, but it does require knowledge of hardware. Time is better spent learning how to code than fixing old Macs.
The existing superdrive in the iMac seems to be working for you. Really, the issue for you guys it seems from reading through the thread is getting a bootable dmg on a flash drive or DVD. For an enthusiast its no big deal really, but trying to figure out bootable PowerPC iterations of OS X on flash drives is a headache with a big learning curve for anyone trying it for the first time. Intel mac boxes it's a breeze, but PowerPC is a huge pain in the rear. Getting bootable OSX on a dual layer DVD via any number of window apps on your win10 box is much easier and straight forward comparatively. Also, while bootable flash drives are not, DL DVDs are era correct to the PowerPC iMac G5.
BUT disk utility in Monterey on your new m1 mini will do this too
All you'd need is a DL DVD and a DVD player as the m1 mini does not have an optical drive. Congrats on the m1 - great box for your son/family BTW. Making a DVD on the mini will require your USB DVD drive (luckily Apple designed in two legacy USB A ports on that mini). The same challenges on the PowerPC flash drive installer front will apply on the new M1 unfortunately. Also, Apple ended Target disk mode on the new m1 silicon macs, so that is not an option here either.I agree that the G5 is a fun AIO to mess with and revisit macos of yester-year, but as a functional machine for a kid in 2021 soon to be 2022, the m1 is the ticket - there's no contest there. And learning a future proof skill like coding python or whatever is such a fantastic skill that will just make you that much more proficient at working on and playing around with old boxes like that iMac G5 AIO.
and brush up on those soldering skills as a recap job is just a matter of time on those ImacG5s ... but will also be a really fun Dad-son project & opportunity to play with a computers guts at the component level I think.
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It should™ still be possible to access the iMac G5's hard drive via Target Disk Mode from an M1 Mac using a Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter though (correct?), my general idea being to then try to restore the Leopard installer ISO to a partition on the iMac's hard drive and booting from that, circumventing the getting-iMac-to-boot-from-USB part of the story.
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Technically from what I have read, Maybe? I don’t own a m1 to try it out & I’m not too hot on buying a $35 adapter either
Also, with what I read on the Apple site, Using the new m1 method, it essentially looks like you’re booting the m1 into recovery mode and sharing its hdd to another Mac. I haven’t seen it where you can tdm a borked mac for example to a functioning m1 and be able to access the borked drive for recovery.
Until I can afford a m1 Mac to try it out, it’s all Chinese to me leaving me wonder why they axed such a great macOS staple as TDM.
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SUCCESS!
Sort of. I was able to finally load OS X 10.4. Then I got an SSD drive and installed Sorbet Leopard. Took some finagling, finally did it. There's just no way for win and mac to get along. Oh well.
Question: is there a way to get the mac to recognize the scroll wheel on my USB mouse? No, I don't want to buy a used Macintosh mouse, I'd like to use whatever I have lying around thanks!
Ciao from Italia!
Sort of. I was able to finally load OS X 10.4. Then I got an SSD drive and installed Sorbet Leopard. Took some finagling, finally did it. There's just no way for win and mac to get along. Oh well.
Question: is there a way to get the mac to recognize the scroll wheel on my USB mouse? No, I don't want to buy a used Macintosh mouse, I'd like to use whatever I have lying around thanks!
Ciao from Italia!
The scroll wheel should work straight away, however if you go into System Preferences -> Mouse, there should be some options in there.
Cheers
Hugh
Hi all, success (of sorts). Nope, I was never able to boot from USB, despite major tinkering. In the end I borrowed a Tiger DVD, installed that on the hard drive, then copied the Sorbet Leopard .dmg on the Mac desktop and used that to restore the image onto a purpose-bought SSD.
Also, the PowerMac came without the little airport daugther card, so only wired ethernet for me. I'm currently connected to the Internet in a way that shouldn't work but does?
I have a little range extender, D-LINK DAP-1330, that allows you to extend your wifi network.
This is how the manual says you're supposed to do it
And this is how I'm doing it
Like I said, shouldn't work but does... the mind boggles.
Ciao everyone! Thank you so much for all of your suggestions and insights.
Luca from Italy
Also, the PowerMac came without the little airport daugther card, so only wired ethernet for me. I'm currently connected to the Internet in a way that shouldn't work but does?
I have a little range extender, D-LINK DAP-1330, that allows you to extend your wifi network.
This is how the manual says you're supposed to do it
And this is how I'm doing it
Like I said, shouldn't work but does... the mind boggles.
Ciao everyone! Thank you so much for all of your suggestions and insights.
Luca from Italy
This looks to be fulfilling a similar function to when I use an a1264 airport express to bring ethernet to my bondi imacg3 that lives on the other side of the house from my wireless modem. This sort of network accessory is very handy to have IMO.
On a side note, on your a1047 DP2ghz PCI powermac, a wireless g Dynex DX-EBDTC pci card will show up as native wireless airport and they're pretty cheap. The last one I bought last year off ebay was all of $7.00 shipped.
Best of luck to you.
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We just read this and got a lot out of it. Thanks!The existing superdrive in the iMac seems to be working for you. Really, the issue for you guys it seems from reading through the thread is getting a bootable dmg on a flash drive or DVD. For an enthusiast its no big deal really, but trying to figure out bootable PowerPC iterations of OS X on flash drives is a headache with a big learning curve for anyone trying it for the first time. Intel mac boxes it's a breeze, but PowerPC is a huge pain in the rear. Getting bootable OSX on a dual layer DVD via any number of window apps on your win10 box is much easier and straight forward comparatively. Also, while bootable flash drives are not, DL DVDs are era correct to the PowerPC iMac G5.
BUT disk utility in Monterey on your new m1 mini will do this too
I agree that the G5 is a fun AIO to mess with and revisit macos of yester-year, but as a functional machine for a kid in 2021 soon to be 2022, the m1 is the ticket - there's no contest there. And learning a future proof skill like coding python or whatever is such a fantastic skill that will just make you that much more proficient at working on and playing around with old boxes like that iMac G5 AIO.
and brush up on those soldering skills as a recap job is just a matter of time on those ImacG5s ... but will also be a really fun Dad-son project & opportunity to play with a computers guts at the component level I think.
Hi Everyone, I want to give you an update on the kid's saga -- at least I can tell you my understanding of what is going on. It's been frustrating to keep going with that iMacG5.
He did get the Mini -- it's awesome! Unbelievably, somebody gave away an HP2311 monitor on the exact same day that the Mini arrived. That's good, because his cheap Sceptre monitor was kinda challenging to get to work well with the Mini at first, and the HP monitor is pretty nice (by our standards). The older lady who gave away the HP2311 didn' t have its power cord, so we had to order a replacement which hasn't come yet. So we're not at full strength yet with the Mini. But it's great.
While he waits for the monitor's power cord, he returned to trying to get the iMac G5 going again. It's still hard. Like you guys have been saying, it can be a real pain to make a bootable USB. Here's the current glitch: He hasn't been able to "restore the file to (?) the USB" -- the error code is OS argument 22, or something like that. And something about an "invalid source argument"? Sounds like Apple won't, basically, let him make a bootable USB. We don't have any dual layer DVDs, just the 4.7GB standards, so... we're out of luck there, right?
And, to his chagrin, he hasn't found any YouTube videos that explain this process for Monterey, or even Big Sur or Catalina. Are we missing something there?
So he's still stumped on getting 10.4 and/or 10.5 for the iMac.
BTW, he really likes the design of the G4. It IS cool. I think he wants to collect a G3, G4, and G5 some day. He also thinks a working G4 or G3 would help him get the G5 working.
Are the details of the 'pain in the neck', 'steep learning curve' process for making a bootable USB out there somewhere? Do the above error messages ring a bell?
He did get the Mini -- it's awesome! Unbelievably, somebody gave away an HP2311 monitor on the exact same day that the Mini arrived. That's good, because his cheap Sceptre monitor was kinda challenging to get to work well with the Mini at first, and the HP monitor is pretty nice (by our standards). The older lady who gave away the HP2311 didn' t have its power cord, so we had to order a replacement which hasn't come yet. So we're not at full strength yet with the Mini. But it's great.
While he waits for the monitor's power cord, he returned to trying to get the iMac G5 going again. It's still hard. Like you guys have been saying, it can be a real pain to make a bootable USB. Here's the current glitch: He hasn't been able to "restore the file to (?) the USB" -- the error code is OS argument 22, or something like that. And something about an "invalid source argument"? Sounds like Apple won't, basically, let him make a bootable USB. We don't have any dual layer DVDs, just the 4.7GB standards, so... we're out of luck there, right?
And, to his chagrin, he hasn't found any YouTube videos that explain this process for Monterey, or even Big Sur or Catalina. Are we missing something there?
So he's still stumped on getting 10.4 and/or 10.5 for the iMac.
BTW, he really likes the design of the G4. It IS cool. I think he wants to collect a G3, G4, and G5 some day. He also thinks a working G4 or G3 would help him get the G5 working.
Are the details of the 'pain in the neck', 'steep learning curve' process for making a bootable USB out there somewhere? Do the above error messages ring a bell?
Seems the easiest path would be to get a couple of DL DVDs
A couple more quick questions, in case someone has a moment: he just found at least one of the OS's on eBay for like $20. Are these generally legit? Like people selling old OS's from their old computers? Or do they tend to be scam-ish? He also thought he might try to install Yellow Dog (Linux) on the iMacG5. Do you think that would work?
Just want to thank you all again for all of your advice.?
Just want to thank you all again for all of your advice.?
An imac or mini g4 would in fact be pretty easy to install OSX to the imacg5 because of firewire and target disc mode. You would need to buy a firewire400 cable though to do this. Effectively it makes the imacg5 target mac act like an external hdd to the imacg4 host mac at which point you can put whatever you want on it or simply restore an image (say for example @z970 's Sorbet Leopard Here) from the imacg4 to the imacg5 via disk utility or use another cloning utility like carbon copy cloner to clone a system image onto the imacg5. Once the restore/clone is done, you should be able to boot into the imacg5 without issue. Lots of YT vids on how to use TDM and restore from DU.
If the discs are the set of gray system disks for your imacg5 model specifically, yes this should work without issue and they are legit. These came with the mac and were designed specifically to reinstall the OS the mac shipped with if there was an issue. It has to be the specific system disks that shipped with your imac g5 model however. These discs are not universal meaning a powerbook g4 system disc set will not work on a imacg5 and vice versa - they are model specific.
I have no idea if Yellow dog will work on a g5. I recall Sean at Action retro installed YD on a imacg3 in one of his videos but I have no experience installing YD on an imacg5. Yanno that gave me an idea - if he wanted to play around with linux, he might try @wicknix 's Lubuntu 16.04 Remix distro for PowerPC macintosh Here .
Either way, I think picking up a couple dual layer DVDs and using the win10 box to make them bootable is the easiest/cost effective solution here although picking up a g4 imac or mini for cheap would be super cool for him Im sure. Congrats on the M1 mini! That is rad!
If the discs are the set of gray system disks for your imacg5 model specifically, yes this should work without issue and they are legit. These came with the mac and were designed specifically to reinstall the OS the mac shipped with if there was an issue. It has to be the specific system disks that shipped with your imac g5 model however. These discs are not universal meaning a powerbook g4 system disc set will not work on a imacg5 and vice versa - they are model specific.
I have no idea if Yellow dog will work on a g5. I recall Sean at Action retro installed YD on a imacg3 in one of his videos but I have no experience installing YD on an imacg5. Yanno that gave me an idea - if he wanted to play around with linux, he might try @wicknix 's Lubuntu 16.04 Remix distro for PowerPC macintosh Here .
Either way, I think picking up a couple dual layer DVDs and using the win10 box to make them bootable is the easiest/cost effective solution here although picking up a g4 imac or mini for cheap would be super cool for him Im sure. Congrats on the M1 mini! That is rad!
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Thank you!An imac or mini g4 would in fact be pretty easy to install OSX to the imacg5 because of firewire and target disc mode. You would need to buy a firewire400 cable though to do this. Effectively it makes the imacg5 target mac act like an external hdd to the imacg4 host mac at which point you can put whatever you want on it or simply restore an image (say for example @z970 's Sorbet Leopard Here) from the imacg4 to the imacg5 via disk utility or use another cloning utility like carbon copy cloner to clone a system image onto the imacg5. Once the restore/clone is done, you should be able to boot into the imacg5 without issue. Lots of YT vids on how to use TDM and restore from DU.
If the discs are the set of gray system disks for your imacg5 model specifically, yes this should work without issue and they are legit. These came with the mac and were designed specifically to reinstall the OS the mac shipped with if there was an issue. It has to be the specific system disks that shipped with your imac g5 model however. These discs are not universal meaning a powerbook g4 system disc set will not work on a imacg5 and vice versa - they are model specific.
I have no idea if Yellow dog will work on a g5. I recall Sean at Action retro installed YD on a imacg3 in one of his videos but I have no experience installing YD on an imacg5. Yanno that gave me an idea - if he wanted to play around with linux, he might try @wicknix 's Lubuntu 16.04 Remix distro for PowerPC macintosh Here .
Either way, I think picking up a couple dual layer DVDs and using the win10 box to make them is the easiest/cost effective solution here although picking up a g4 imac or mini for cheap would be super cool for him Im sure. Congrats on the M1 mini! That is rad!
I've run into the issue of "invalid source argument" before, in Disk Utility for restoring. I can't remember offhand which way it was that actually fixed the issue for me, but I believe if you click on the source (the dmg/iso image) and then drag the source to the source box, and the destination to the destination box, it will work. If that doesn't work, try the opposite, and first click on the destination and drag it to the destination, and then drag the source to the source box.
Here's a video I just found explaining it a bit clearer:
As pointed out, if they are grey discs they are keyed to the specific machine they were originally shipped with. You'd either have to modify the installer and burn a new disc (at this point, you may as well get a retail disc image and burn that to circumvent the hassle) or spoof the iMac's model ID in OpenFirmware to match the ID the grey disc expects, which just complicates things. If you want to spend money on a Mac OS X DVD, get a retail 10.4 or 10.5 one. That is sure to work on the iMac without any hassle (assuming its DVD drive functions).
The last version of YDL available for PPC Macs is 6.2, released in 2009. That's pretty ancient. I'd rather go with a more recent distro; maybe @wicknix excellent "remixes" of Lubuntu 12.04 or 16.04 which have been upgraded with newer software.