Trying to get a G5 going again

[adam9c1]

I have installed a M$ Windows hard disk in one of the two slots.

Unable to eject optical drive by pressing the ^ key above delete.
Installed USB external drive.
Attempted to boot with a 10.4 disk I found
Attempted to boot with a 10.4 server disk
Attempted to boot with a Mac OS 9 featuring sherlock 2 CD

All I get is the gong and then a logo of "?" and "happy mac face" alternating.
After few minutes of this the fans start to spin up and up.

Is it possible the G5 logic is unable to read / mount modern USB DVD drive?
I had a Dell FW400 optical drive long ago and gave it away.

I am able to boot the G5 into Target Disk Mode and have formatted the HD properly.

 

[MacCubed]

To eject the optical drive you hold the mouse button (non-apple mouse=right click) until the DVD drive opens. It should boot after a few seconds of reading the DVD.

If this does not work, check if the DVD is read by the computer when you hold the option key at bootup. If it is not recognized, you may have a bad DVD drive. If this is the case you can use the External DVD drive, but you will need to use open firmware, (CMD+OPT+O+F at startup), and with the USB DVD Drive (DVD inside) plugged in (make sure it is plugged in before you boot into Open Firmware), enter the command boot ud:,\\:tbxi and see if it will boot.

Now if none of this works, you may just have a bad DVD, you can obtain images for both Tiger and Leopard from the Macintosh Garden (a quick google search will get you there). Once you have the images, you can create a bootable USB, or just burn another DVD (Note: Leopard will only fit on a dual layer DVD unless you slim it down)


USB Creation Process, (You will need another Mac for this)

1. Mount the DMG of Mac OS X Installer by double clicking the file.

2. Open "Disk Utility" and plug in your USB Drive.

3. Select your USB Drive from the lefthand side of the window.

4. Go to the Erase tab and select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and name it whatever you want.

5. Uncheck "Mac OS 9 Drivers" and hit Erase.

6. Wait for it to erase and then select the Partition tab.

7. Set "Volume Scheme" as 1 Partition

8. Then select "Options" and select "Apple Partition Map" then hit OK

9. Finally hit Apply.

10. Now go to the "Restore" tab.

11. Drag the partition from the USB Drive into the Destination box.

12. Now Drag "Mac OS X Install DVD" into the Source box.

13. Check "Erase Destination" and hit "Restore". (This will take a VERY long time so be patient).



Once you have booted into the installer, either from the DVD or a USB, you will need to access the "Utilities" menu at the install screen and navigate to Disk Utility. From here you will need to erase the HDD and make sure it is set to "Mac OS Extended" and apply it. Remaining in Disk Utility, you will need to go to the partition tab, and select the "Volume Scheme" pull down tab and choose 1 Partition, after this, you MUST hit the "Options" button and select "Apple Partition Map" and hit Ok. Once this is done, hit apply and you should now be able to install OS X.


Hope this helps!!

 

[adam9c1]

Hi Cubed.
Thanks for this EXTENSIVE write-up. I was not aware of the open firmware option.
Back in the day I mostly worked with G3 (huge gamma of models) and a few G4s that were running workgroup manager or something along those lines...

At any rate, I pulled down the optical bay door and used the paperclip trick. The slot moved only with my hands, but at next power up it ate the disc. I'm installing Tiger now.

 

[MacCubed]

No problem! Glad I could be of some help! The firmware option is pretty useful on Macs where the USB won't show up in the Boot selector menu, however some of the PMG5s (the 7,2 and 7,3 if i recall) lack the ud alias and therefore, can't boot from USB easily. You could create the ud alias on your own, but the easiest way to boot then installer on those models is to restore the DMG to another partition on the HDD you are installing to. And another thing, OS 9 won't install on a PMG5, if you need classic applications to run, you will need to use the "Classic" feature. This was removed in Leopard, so you will need Tiger or lower to use it. Depending on your model of PowerMac, you can run all the way back to Jaguar. Again glad to help out! It's always nice getting these old PPC Macs back up and running again! Also, out of curiosity, what are the specs of the G5? You'll be able to tell more once Tiger is installed, but on the grey label on the inside of the computer, what do the specs list?

 

[adam9c1]

It's a 7,2
dual socket 1.8ghz
4GB RAM

I tried the OS 9 in the USB drive as I was trying to see if I can get anything on the unit.
You will hate me... I was wanting to set it up as a trade in at Best Buy. I bought it way back to turn into a hackintosh LIKE case for my 7 or so year old gaming PC.

 

[MacCubed]

It's a 7,2
dual socket 1.8ghz
4GB RAM

I tried the OS 9 in the USB drive as I was trying to see if I can get anything on the unit.
You will hate me... I was wanting to set it up as a trade in at Best Buy. I bought it way back to turn into a hackintosh LIKE case for my 7 or so year old gaming PC.

There are kits to turn a G5 into a ATX Case, but most of us here are against it... The dual 1.8GHz G5s are actually becoming progressively more rare, and if you upgrade/use it correctly, it's a nice machine. There are a few people here who would probably buy the G5 off of you for more than what Best Buy will offer. Either way, I would hold out until you make a final decision. I'm all for gutting a G5 case if it's totally dead (BGA RAM Slot Failure, LCS Leak, or water damage), but if it's working or repairable, I don't see the point of killing one... There's plenty of dead ones one eBay, or even gutted cases that you could use, I just hate to see a working Mac killed!

 

[hartleymartin]

See that comment has made me rethink what I was going to do with the G5 I have. It is a PowerMac 7,2 (Dual G5 2.0GHz CPUs). I originally bought it as "not working" for $20 with the intention of converting it to an ATX case, but a quite dust-out, replacement HDD and a replacement graphics card and it works. I just need to get OSX onto it, but for the moment it is running Lubuntu. Once I get OSX onto it, I think I'll try and pass it on to a Retro-Mac enthusiast.

 

[adam9c1]

I have it in the FS section for $35 locally with the server OS.
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