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Power mac G5 won't boot

T

thecrispykid

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 6, 2009
17
0
Hi!

I'm in way over my head after promising to fix my father in laws power mac g5.

When i press the power button everything seem normal. you hear the apple sound but after a short while the fans speed up the screen turns grey with a folder icon and a flashing question mark and then the apple logo appears. i have never been past this stage.

i have paired the memory installed correctly and i have tried every memory combination possible.
I have reset the Pmu and i have reset the pram. i also tried to remove the battery but that didn't help either. i also tried to boot from a system disc but nothing i hear the disc spinning but nothing happens.

any suggestions? i am going crazy with this and it would mean so much to me getting this fixed for my father in law!
 
Folder with flashing question mark means no OS was found.

This could mean the boot drive is dead or damaged. It could mean the OS was corrupted. If you have an OS disc, boot from it and run Disk Utility.
 
the thing is, it won't boot from the optical unit either. i hear the os x disc spinning in there but nothing happends past the apple logo screen...
 
Try holding down Option when you boot. That'll bring up the boot selection screen and let you make sure it's trying to boot from the OS drive.

Also, I assume you're using the Boot Disc that came with the computer... remember Snow Leopard won't boot a PowerMac, only Intel Macs.
 
I have tried booting from os disc with only a completely wiped hard drive in the computer and also tried booting to hard drive with os installed - a super duper copy of my old mac mini hard drive. no difference whatsoever...
 
i don't have the system discs but i have tried clean standalone versions of leopard and tiger. no difference there either...
 
I assume you've tried booting from optical disc by holding down the C key as well?

Also, try a PPC Linux install CD - that might help.

Furthermore, the reason your clones might not be working is because they've been partitioned with GUID partition table on Intel wheras Power uses the Apple partition table.
 
yes, i figured that out so i cloned the hard drive from my old mac mini which is also power pc... but no...

when i hold down c on boot nothing happens but when i hold down option the hard drive and the os-disc actually appears and i get to choose which one to boot from. problem is there is no difference, none will get past the grey apple logo screen and the fans sounding like indy 500...
 
Have you tried booting off the Mac Mini through Target Disk Mode? Connect the G5 to the mini using a firewire cable, start up the mini holding down the "T" key until a blue screen with the Firewire logo comes up. Then power up the G5 holding down "Option" and select the Mini's hard drive. It'll show up as an external drive.
 
Success!

Well a partial success anyhow...

i was getting desparate and impatient and as a last measure i slapped the computer around some. A few hard strokes on the outside chassis and wriggle of every cable connection visible on the inside.

Presto, it starts, boots and everything seems to be working perfectly for a while but then it freezes and i have the same thing all over with it not starting and the fans going crazy. what is happening? anyone? is violence the solution here?
 
thecrispykid said:
Success!

Well a partial success anyhow...

i was getting desparate and impatient and as a last measure i slapped the computer around some. A few hard strokes on the outside chassis and wriggle of every cable connection visible on the inside.

Presto, it starts, boots and everything seems to be working perfectly for a while but then it freezes and i have the same thing all over with it not starting and the fans going crazy. what is happening? anyone? is violence the solution here?
Click to expand...

It sounds like the logic board (or HDD) may be going. I know a few people have had issues with solder breaking on the logic board, rendering it unbootable. I would go into the Apple Store for a full diagnostic, there isn't really a way that you can tell what the problem is otherwise if you are untrained.
 
Yes, it is called Apple Hardware Test. This software would have come with the G5, on one of the original install discs. Unfortunately, you do not have the original discs, and only discs for the SAME MODEL Powermac G5 will work.
 
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