No hard drive...

[n8236]

Got a PowerMac G5 which fails to boot. I get the flashing folder w/ face and question mark. Reseted PRAM, no go. Tried Command+Alt+P+R, no go.

So, I stuck in the 10.5 DVD and the machine gave me a message that it can't install (which is fine because I wasn't planning on reinstalling a newer OS/X anyways).

I go into Disk Utility and I see no hard drives (only the optical). I drill down to SATA connections and I see nothing.

I also tried plugging in a bootable fw external hard drive and it didn't pick it up.

Dead mobo or dead hd or both?

 

[Makosuke]

Well, before anything else, run the hardware test disc that came with it. If it were the motherboard, this would probably tell you so. At the very least, it's not going to generate any false positives.

It's far more likely the hard drive is dead than the motherboard, but the only real way to test is to get a new drive.

You could take the outer side panel off and put your ear next to the drive to see if it's spinning up and/or making weird noises when the machine is powered on.

As for why it wouldn't see the external, that's weird, though again if the motherboard were screwed up badly enough to break both internal SATA and external FW, I'd be rather surprised that it would be functional enough to boot into the installer at all. When you said plugged in a bootable external, do you mean it failed to boot from said external, or did that external not even show up in Disk Utility when you were booted off the install DVD?

If it just won't boot, see if it's visible from Disk Utility; if so, maybe it's just not seeing it as bootable. Did you try holding down Option while starting to get the boot-partition select screen, or was it not listed there?

 

[n8236]

Well, before anything else, run the hardware test disc that came with it. If it were the motherboard, this would probably tell you so. At the very least, it's not going to generate any false positives.

It's far more likely the hard drive is dead than the motherboard, but the only real way to test is to get a new drive.

You could take the outer side panel off and put your ear next to the drive to see if it's spinning up and/or making weird noises when the machine is powered on.

As for why it wouldn't see the external, that's weird, though again if the motherboard were screwed up badly enough to break both internal SATA and external FW, I'd be rather surprised that it would be functional enough to boot into the installer at all. When you said plugged in a bootable external, do you mean it failed to boot from said external, or did that external not even show up in Disk Utility when you were booted off the install DVD?

If it just won't boot, see if it's visible from Disk Utility; if so, maybe it's just not seeing it as bootable. Did you try holding down Option while starting to get the boot-partition select screen, or was it not listed there?

Where exactly is the hardware test disc? My UMBP came w/ two discs, one OSX and one App disc.

To clarify, I plugged in an external which had a cloned (bootable) image of another mac to the Powermac G5 and it didn't show up on the list of bootable items when holding down the alt-key.

 

[n8236]

Ok, I think I know what you're talking about. I hope this will work. I have a 10.5 disc and a G5 machine...

 

[Makosuke]

Where exactly is the hardware test disc? My UMBP came w/ two discs, one OSX and one App disc.

Your G5 originally came with a couple of install discs, one of which includes (or is) the Apple Hardware Test disc. If it's a standalone, it would be labeled as such; if it's a combo, then one of the discs should say something along the lines of "Hold down D to run Apple Hardware Test" on the disc label. Do what this says when powering up the machine with the disc inserted, and it should boot into a low-level hardware test system from which you can run the tests.

Note that retail boxed OSX discs do NOT include this, and the hardware test from your laptop will NOT work on your G5--each one is system-specific to the model it shipped with.

If you bought the G5 used without discs or you've lost them, you can either bum a copy off someone with the same model, use a different hardware test (for example, the TechTool that comes with Applecare), or maybe you can buy one cheap from Apple. Could also try the Genius Bar if there's a store near you.

 

[Consultant]

PPC such as G5 are not going to boot Intel Mac bootable harddrives.

 

[n8236]

Mako, thanks for that information. Sucks, cuz now I gotta find that damn disc to troubleshoot the thing.

Consultant, thanks also for ur info. That makes sense, duh!

 

[Makosuke]

PPC such as G5 are not going to boot Intel Mac bootable harddrives.

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that a 10.5 install will run either a PPC or Intel Mac. The issue, however, is that Intels will generally only boot from a GUID-partitioned drive, while PPC Macs will only accept an APM partition map on a boot drive.

If, then, you cloned directly to an external that was formatted using GUID for the partition map, the G5 wouldn't recognize it as a boot drive even if the OS on it was fully bootable. If it's formatted using GUID, betcha reformatting as APM and re-cloning will give you a G5 bootable disk (or at least one that's recognized as bootable). Now it won't boot your other computer, of course...