Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PowerMac G5 Leopard won't install

C

cook.675

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 24, 2011
50
0
I have a Powermac G5 2.0 GHz dual, currently running 10.3.9.

My boss gave me this computer, and I want to update to the latest version I can. I got my hands on a Leopard install disc. When I put it in the Mac drive, it just spits it back out and I can't view the contents. I try restarting holding down C and it just spits it out before startup and boots to the desktop like normal.

I connected my external DVD drive (super iomega somethign) and it reads the disc perfectly, the screen comes up and I double click to install/restart. Upon restart, the computer just boots as normal. I try double clicking from the installer CD again and restarting, only this time holding down C; same thing.

I go to startup disc and double click the 'Leopard OSX install disc' and hit restart, and it doesn't restart. It acts like I didn't click anything.

I repaired and verified the disc permissions on the HD, other than this I have no idea what to do? I am pretty certain its not a problem with my disc or the external CD drive so......?

Any suggestions?

Thanks alot
 
Sometimes older optical drives have problems reading dvds. Have you verified that the internal optical drive can read a dvd?
 
Yes, it read the snow leopard disc when I tried to install it just fine ( before i knew you couldnt install it)

with this snow leopard I was able to attempt an install. Also tried the OS disc that came with my macbook, and it went through the installtion process (or started to anyway)

----------

I also neglected to mention that I burned this disc on a DVD+R dual layer, however, my macbook reads the disc and can start to go through the installation when i restart/try to install
 
Is it a genuine Apple DVD disc (retail up upgrade), or a DVD-R disc that contains the data? It sounds like the DVD has information on it, enough to fool parts of Disk Image and Startup Disk that it is a valid piece of bootable media, but it is missing the boot code to actually install on the system.

I would try the disc on another older machine and see what happens. I suspect it is bad.
 
partition...use disk utility to copy leopard disk to new partition...reboot,"option" key and pick second partition,hopefully starts install routine and then select first partition to install too............
 
Tried to partition in disk utility; it's all grayed out and says "this disk contains the boot volume and cna not be partitioned"

How do I partition this?
 
Nevermind, I think i can do that by putting an old OS X 10.3 install disc in and going into disk utility from the install upon restart.

About the problem, the problem is with the G5 not the disc. The disc works flawlessly when I put it in my macbook, and goes to the install screen when I restart etc....

?
 
leopard can install to both ppc and intel...i would try the copy to partition install thing at least...

ps: i know you can make custom leopard disk to fit onto reg 4.7 gig dvd's...but unaware if perhaps one could make custom disk that just contained install for intel only....
 
How do you use disk utility 10.3 to copy from the leopard disk to the new partition? I see no option to copy or anything similar?
 
in disk utilities...

restore:

source: will be dvd...(use your external dvd player) drag dvd to source box

destination: will be your second partition (make at least 8-10 gigs) and drag that partition to destination box

then click restore

this may take some time...go make a tea lol

after it's done reboot...hold down option key and pick second partition and cross fingers
 
Im working on it now; I booted off of my 10.3 disc, went into disk utility; formatted the main HD into 2 partitions (one is 10 GB for leopard); then selected the leopard DVD and did 'new image', custom size 8122 MB (the actual size was 8121.679) and saved it on the leopard partition. If this is not the correct protocol please let me know, i am new to mac formatting/installing OS. Ill post if i start to run into problems, thanks everyone for the help.

----------

ok looks like i was off a little bit, ill give that a shot

thanks
 
Have you tried holding down the Option button right before the Apple chime during boot and allow the unit to scan bootable media? It should display the hard disk and scan the internal optical drive as well as the USB drive that you have connected for bootable media. You may need to click the refresh button on that boot screen once or twice. See if the 10.5 media appears. If it does, you can click that and click the forward arrow to boot from it.
 
Under restore on my leopard partition, I attempt to drag the disc from the DVD and it only highlights it, it won't allow me to drag it over (or any other disc/drive pictured for that matter) I tried right clicking also.

I click on image to the right, however my DVD doesn't show up under a list of options to select under this heading. Would it work to make a 'new image' of the DVD in disk utility, then select it using the image browser next to the source text box? Or is there another way to drag I'm not getting...?

thanks a ton
 
tom vilsack said:
monkey...wont work...ppc's can't boot from usb so even holding down option key..it wont show his usb dvd drive
Click to expand...

It does on mine. I have an external LG drive and a CD only Power Macintosh and it boots find from the External DVD drive. Just slow at 11Mb, but it does work.

My G5 iMac will also boot from a USB DVD drive too.
 
Ahhh that explains why it can't boot to install when running the install from inside the current OS 10.3; and also why startup disc denies restarting when selecting the DVD off the external drive.

But doesn't explain why the internal optical drive just wants to spit it back out.
 
cook.675 said:
Ahhh that explains why it can't boot to install when running the install from inside the current OS 10.3; and also why startup disc denies restarting when selecting the DVD off the external drive.
Click to expand...

If you are attempting to hold down "C" to boot from the external drive, I don't think that will work. Option may work for you though. It does on my machines - even old ones (I didn't think it would until I tried it.)
 
your dvd drive should show two sections

example:

samsung dvd-r

mac osx install dvd


you would drag the second section (mac osx install dvd to source section)

----------
monkeybagel said:
It does on mine. I have an external LG drive and a CD only Power Macintosh and it boots find from the External DVD drive. Just slow at 11Mb, but it does work.

My G5 iMac will also boot from a USB DVD drive too.
Click to expand...

i stand corrected then...but on both my ibooks,powerbook it wouldn't boot from usb drive
 
Heres what I tried;

I couldn't get the drag to work, nothing will drag over. the Leopard install disc only shows one heading (Iomega SUPERDVD 8.7 GB etc..) while my 10.3 boot disc has three heading (pioneer DVD - session 1 - MAC OSX Install disc); none of them drag over

So I tried creating a new image from the DVD, custom size 8122 gigs and saving it to the leopard partition; then rebooting. It wanted me to select a startup disc first since I trashed the 10.3 that was installed, i selected the 10.3 DISC, held down option on startup and only was shown the 10.3 disc as a bootable option despite a couple refreshes.

Why isn't it letting me drag over? Would it help to put in a 10.4 install disc that came with my mac book and use that disk utility to try the drag?
 
Switching disks during the option boot to see if it will force it to read leopard off the optical drive....
 
cook.675 said:
Heres what I tried;

I couldn't get the drag to work, nothing will drag over. the Leopard install disc only shows one heading (Iomega SUPERDVD 8.7 GB etc..) while my 10.3 boot disc has three heading (pioneer DVD - session 1 - MAC OSX Install disc); none of them drag over
Click to expand...

If it is showing only one heading that tells me that the drive is not aware of the media that is in it, or at least cannot read/understand it.

If you boot into Panther and insert your Leopard DVD into either of the drives that will read it and mount it on the desktop and open the DVD icon and you should see the contents of the DVD. Locate the following path - System/Installation/Packages and you should see a OSInstall.mpkg. Go ahead and run that and when it asks you where to install the OS point it to the new partition you just created. You may need to make it larger than it is now as this will place the entire OS there. That will at least test it out and see if it is working.

The path above is for the Tiger installation media - I suspect Leopard will be the same or similar. You will be looking for OSInstall.mpkg in either case.
 
Ok I will try that after I reinstall 10.3. Like I said earlier I trashed it during the partition and haven't reinstalled it yet so can't look at directories.

I need to get to sleep it's almost 4 I'm going to pick it up tomorrow morning.

Thanks so much for all your help there maybe some light at the end of the tunnel
 
im guessing something wrong with dvd

summary as i understand

-you tryed booting leopard dvd from internal and external dvd's holding down "c" from cold boot
-you tryed booting leopard dvd from internal and external dvd's holding down "option" from cold boot
-you tryed booting from osx 10.3 disk (works) and then making two partitions and then trying to used external dvd and restore (not showing option of "mac osx install dvd)
-you made image from leopard dvd (btw that would boot in options) and seemd very fast to make a whole dvd image of leopard..should have taken 20-30 min

why em i getting feeling something messed with leopard dvd

edit: ah sleep good option ;-)
 
Swaping out Panther for Leopard at the boot screen didn't work.

Is it possible it is having trouble with the dual layer disc I burned in the optical drive because I'm missing an update or driver?

----------

If something is wrong with the Leopard DVD how can I put it in my macbook and have it recognize it as a startup disc and start the installation process with no problems?

----------

threw in my macbook install CD (leopard) and ran disk utility;

Now the external DVD drive has a subset of MAC OS Install Disc, and I am able to drag the disc's over to restore. Ill let you know what happens.

Thanks again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back