Used Mac Pro G5 no operating system need help!!

[zpaitsel]

Sorry for being not precise enough: You need to keep the command and option keys on BOTH sides of the keyboard pressed down (i usually use one thumb per either side for both keys) together with the p and r keys.

ok i was only using them on the left side and using my fingers on the key's.. i didnt know it had to be on both sides, Either way i can only boot to one screen.. this rediculous login screen.. There is no lock it just gives me options for restart, sleep, login, and has a big disclaimer this is property of national geographic blah blah blah...

is it possible there is an HDD lock on this thing??? but that doesn't explain why i can't boot from cd... and i know the cd recognizes the disc because i can boot to the boot options menu but from there i can't make any selection.

 

[gpzjock]

Don't know if this will work but try it.

If it was me, I would replace the HDD with a different one that has not been anywhere near a G5 Mac Pro. Then I would fire it up and hold down the C key to boot from the OS X install DVD. Check you are not trying to read a DVD with a CD Rom drive (unlikely but possible). Once into the install menu select Disc Utility from the top left menu bar, the options on this menu are very limited. In Disc Utility erase and repartition the new HDD with a single Mac OS X partition.
Once this drive is visible on the desktop run the OS X install.

Hope this helps, Mac OS X is very different to Windows so you are in a process of relearning what you already know for one OS in another. Trust me, I get just as frustrated inside the Hell of Gates.

Here is a guide just in case it helps: http://macs.about.com/od/leopard105/ss/installleopard.htm
Use the alternative boot option on page 2.

 

[zpaitsel]

If it was me, I would replace the HDD with a different one that has not been anywhere near a G5 Mac Pro. Then I would fire it up and hold down the C key to boot from the OS X install DVD. Check you are not trying to read a DVD with a CD Rom drive (unlikely but possible). Once into the install menu select Disc Utility from the top left menu bar, the options on this menu are very limited. In Disc Utility erase and repartition the new HDD with a single Mac OS X partition.
Once this drive is visible on the desktop run the OS X install.

Hope this helps, Mac OS X is very different to Windows so you are in a process of relearning what you already know for one OS in another. Trust me, I get just as frustrated inside the Hell of Gates.

Here is a guide just in case it helps: http://macs.about.com/od/leopard105/ss/installleopard.htm
Use the alternative boot option on page 2.

Actually I was thinking this was my next option... question though.. is there anyway I can format this HDD outside of the mac using my p.c.?? maybe like an external enclosure.. just totally erase the drive and reformat it with my friends macbook??

 

[minifridge1138]

You can use your friends MacBook to format the drive.
You can not install the OS that way.
MacBooks are intel, the g5 is not.

Since it boots, I'd say everything works but has a firmware password.
With that, you

 

[666sheep]

Right now I am running 2(1gb) sticks of Ram.

Ok, I physically removed a stick from each side of the memory banks, Then I got an apple keyboard(borrowed from a friend).

Little confusing. How many sticks you have finally? If only 2, did you remove them and put back then tried to zap PRAM? You have to change amount of RAM (add or remove 2 sticks - or even one if you have more than 2)...

Next: you don't have to press and hold BOTH "option/alt" or "command" keys.
That was the funniest thing I've read today
Just press and hold ONE "option/alt" + ONE "command" + ONE "P" + ONE "R" BEFORE it chimes. Hold until you'll hear third chime.
Another: did you try another optical drive?

 

[zpaitsel]

Little confusing. How many sticks you have finally? If only 2, did you remove them and put back then tried to zap PRAM? You have to change amount of RAM (add or remove 2 sticks - or even one if you have more than 2)...

Next: you don't have to press and hold BOTH "option/alt" or "command" keys.
That was the funniest thing I've read today
Just press and hold ONE "option/alt" + ONE "command" + ONE "P" + ONE "R" BEFORE it chimes. Hold until you'll hear third chime.
Another: did you try another optical drive?

I have 6 sticks of ram 2(1gb 3200) 4 (256mb 3200) and 8 ram slots / I was under the impression you had to add/remove sticks evenly from both sides.

for the purposes of this testing I have used two pieces of ram in each side of the 8 slots (4each side) in each as follows slot 1(both sides) the 1gb sticks, and in each slot 2 a 256 mb stick. of the logicboard when I try to reset the NVRAM i remove a stick from each side?? is this incorrect??

either way I still can not boot into open firmware / nor can I get any chimes after the initial dong sound when it starts up... I have tried holding the keys and having someone else hit the power button, tried waiting for the chime then hitting the commands.. you name it i have tried it...

When i got the new logicboard I bought a brand new logicboard battery as a replacement / is it possible as well i have crashe the pmu somehow and killed that battery?? it seems i have to wait a few minutes before it will even boot twice now... seems that If I try to shut off manually with front button i can't turn it right back on and try to boot up... I'm like totally lost on this thing.. and If I didn't have good sense I would use it for target practice@!!!

Also, when i put everything back in and started this up for the first time it looked like a bunch of dos commands going on then it booted up to this password screen.. is it possible the HDD transferred this F/w lock to the new logicboard?? Again I am a pc. guy excuse me if my questions seem rediculous..

 

[666sheep]

I have 6 sticks of ram 2(1gb 3200) 4 (256mb 3200) and 8 ram slots / I was under the impression you had to add/remove sticks evenly from both sides.

for the purposes of this testing I have used two pieces of ram in each side of the 8 slots (4each side) in each as follows slot 1(both sides) the 1gb sticks, and in each slot 2 a 256 mb stick. of the logicboard when I try to reset the NVRAM i remove a stick from each side?? is this incorrect??

either way I still can not boot into open firmware / nor can I get any chimes after the initial dong sound when it starts up... I have tried holding the keys and having someone else hit the power button, tried waiting for the chime then hitting the commands.. you name it i have tried it...

When i got the new logicboard I bought a brand new logicboard battery as a replacement / is it possible as well i have crashe the pmu somehow and killed that battery?? it seems i have to wait a few minutes before it will even boot twice now... seems that If I try to shut off manually with front button i can't turn it right back on and try to boot up... I'm like totally lost on this thing.. and If I didn't have good sense I would use it for target practice@!!!

Also, when i put everything back in and started this up for the first time it looked like a bunch of dos commands going on then it booted up to this password screen.. is it possible the HDD transferred this F/w lock to the new logicboard?? Again I am a pc. guy excuse me if my questions seem rediculous..

So it seems that you did it in right way.
Again: OF lock shouldn't have anything to do with HDD. OF is like BIOS (or EFI) - it's programmed chip soldered on logic board. I've had many Macs with OF lock enabled (bought from educational institutions) and so called "force OF password disable method" (which you're trying) always worked for me. OFC I've always used Apple kbd.
There are some "homebrew" shell scripts which could write some changes in OF, but AFAIK they must be executed when OS is loaded (I could be wrong here).

These DOS-looking commands were on black background, correct? If so, it was verbose mode (something like booting Linux without GUI, but without ability to run commands).

 

[zpaitsel]

So it seems that you did it in right way.
Again: OF lock shouldn't have anything to do with HDD. OF is like BIOS (or EFI) - it's programmed chip soldered on logic board. I've had many Macs with OF lock enabled (bought from educational institutions) and so called "force OF password disable method" (which you're trying) always worked for me. OFC I've always used Apple kbd.
There are some "homebrew" shell scripts which could write some changes in OF, but AFAIK they must be executed when OS is loaded (I could be wrong here).

These DOS-looking commands were on black background, correct? If so, it was verbose mode (something like booting Linux without GUI, but without ability to run commands).

Yes, they were on a black background with starting > i waited and it ran (what i suppose would be a boot log). then i came to see the notorious lockscreen i can't get past.. I am going to buy a brand new keyboard / and start switching up the usb port i'm using for the keyboard tonight and see if maybe something is up with the keyboards i have or config.. atleast i can rule that out afterward...

 

[zpaitsel]

So it seems that you did it in right way.
Again: OF lock shouldn't have anything to do with HDD. OF is like BIOS (or EFI) - it's programmed chip soldered on logic board. I've had many Macs with OF lock enabled (bought from educational institutions) and so called "force OF password disable method" (which you're trying) always worked for me. OFC I've always used Apple kbd.
There are some "homebrew" shell scripts which could write some changes in OF, but AFAIK they must be executed when OS is loaded (I could be wrong here).

These DOS-looking commands were on black background, correct? If so, it was verbose mode (something like booting Linux without GUI, but without ability to run commands).

ok.. i swapped out the ram switched positions of the sticks held down on the proper commands hit the power button it chimes.. fan's rev up... then it chimes again but i dont get the entire chime only like 3/4 of a chime.. i bought a brand new battery(again) and happens the same every time.. could this be a power supply issue?

 

[zpaitsel]

Little confusing. How many sticks you have finally? If only 2, did you remove them and put back then tried to zap PRAM? You have to change amount of RAM (add or remove 2 sticks - or even one if you have more than 2)...

Next: you don't have to press and hold BOTH "option/alt" or "command" keys.
That was the funniest thing I've read today
Just press and hold ONE "option/alt" + ONE "command" + ONE "P" + ONE "R" BEFORE it chimes. Hold until you'll hear third chime.
Another: did you try another optical drive?

OK since my two chime incident.. apparently i was able to boot into open firmware.. from there i hit reset-nvram (enter key) reset-all(enter key) then it seemed like it shut down or went to sleep but nothing happend.

now from here Should I be able to boot a retail copy from cd? I got the crazy little login window again but didnt try it. should i go into open firmware again and send a boot command...

 

[666sheep]

OK since my two chime incident.. apparently i was able to boot into open firmware.. from there i hit reset-nvram (enter key) reset-all(enter key) then it seemed like it shut down or went to sleep but nothing happend.

now from here Should I be able to boot a retail copy from cd? I got the crazy little login window again but didnt try it. should i go into open firmware again and send a boot command...

It should restart not shut down or sleep. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812 (See also to this better understand PRAM function: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379)
But if it allows you to reset nvram in OF without asking for password, then OF lock is disabled. Try to boot from install disc using cmd+c or boot X (hold alt/option at startup).

Try this if it still won't boot from DVD: http://blog.litot.es/2006/03/02/boot-from-cd-in-open-firmware/

 

[zpaitsel]

It should restart not shut down or sleep. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812 (See also to this better understand PRAM function: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379)
But if it allows you to reset nvram in OF without asking for password, then OF lock is disabled. Try to boot from install disc using cmd+c or boot X (hold alt/option at startup).

Try this if it still won't boot from DVD: http://blog.litot.es/2006/03/02/boot-from-cd-in-open-firmware/

I'm going to give this a shot.. thanks for the help once again .. I will also try booting from the usb if cd doesn't work.. will let you know.

It seemed like it restarted but the fan's didn't kick in and the osx didnt' load up it kind of just sat there with the white LED on the front... I was questioning if the pwr spply was faulty i am going to change that out as well tonight .. Why not I have two spares..lol

 

[zpaitsel]

It should restart not shut down or sleep. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812 (See also to this better understand PRAM function: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379)
But if it allows you to reset nvram in OF without asking for password, then OF lock is disabled. Try to boot from install disc using cmd+c or boot X (hold alt/option at startup).

Try this if it still won't boot from DVD: http://blog.litot.es/2006/03/02/boot-from-cd-in-open-firmware/

Ok i have gotten conflicting info yes or no this machine can boot up with a usb drive in open firmware? I tried booting from cd in openfirmware when i enter the command it flashes to a screen and instead of an apple logo I get a circle with a line through it almost like a no smoking sign without the cigarette..does this mean the HDD is no good or what..?? very frustrated but trudging onward!

 

[gpzjock]

Looks like you have hardware errors too.

These problems you are encountering seem pretty unusual.
How many complete G5 Power Macs do you have out of the 3? What motherboard did you use to replace the original one? Why did you have to replace it in the first place? Check all the connectors are in the right place and fitting well. Take them out and press them home again just to be certain.
If you have plenty of spares you could mix and match components and see what works or not.
Apple often provide a Hardware Test disc with certain models of Mac which detects errors, have you got one? If not can you borrow one?

As for remote booting, if you hold the T key down while a external drive or other Mac is connected by Firewire, it will boot from there instead. Not familiar with USB remote boot systems.
You can pull the internal drive and reformat it on another Mac but the install needs to be in situ.

More questions than answers, sorry.

 

[zpaitsel]

These problems you are encountering seem pretty unusual.
How many complete G5 Power Macs do you have out of the 3? What motherboard did you use to replace the original one? Why did you have to replace it in the first place? Check all the connectors are in the right place and fitting well. Take them out and press them home again just to be certain.
If you have plenty of spares you could mix and match components and see what works or not.
Apple often provide a Hardware Test disc with certain models of Mac which detects errors, have you got one? If not can you borrow one?

As for remote booting, if you hold the T key down while a external drive or other Mac is connected by Firewire, it will boot from there instead. Not familiar with USB remote boot systems.
You can pull the internal drive and reformat it on another Mac but the install needs to be in situ.

More questions than answers, sorry.

NO PROBLEM, Thanks for trying to help anyway. I have three MacPro G5 towers. they were replaced or in this case given away due to bad logicboards / video card / power supply issues. I am a touch confused and maybe someone can help me with this to help me understand... Is an apple not like a pc in respect to booting from the CD/DVD drive?? it almost seems that you have to have the drive with an OSX on it in order to boot from the installation cd/dvd. On a pc you can boot to the os re-install cd regardless of the HDD status. Is this not the same as a mac? When I try to boot to the osx disc it gives me invalid target or something(I have wiped out the HDD). I can't seem to get this machine to boot to the CD/DVD no matter what I do. In open firmware it's telling me basically that that location doesn' exhist. Although I know it was showing up on option/alt boot when I tried to use that function. The only problem was that the mac would freeze up when trying to boot from that option.. Right now i have a totally blank HDD and all that show's up on boot is a little folder in the middle of the screen. Is there a windows utility that will format this HDD to the mac format??

 

[minifridge1138]

The Mac is just like a PC in most respects.
Just different APIs and EFI instead of Bios.

It should boot to an install cd/DVD even if no hard drive is physically present.

Using a windows machine to format the drive won't do anything for you if you can't boot off of the disk.

Are you sure the optical drives work?
Are you trying to put a DVD in a cd rom?

Without a cd/DVD in it, boot and hold option.
Once you are at the boot selector, put in the disc.

What happens?

 

[Consultant]

Normal method:
1. Put install disk in
2. Boot while holding ALT / OPTION key
3. Select dvd, install
Not sure why it's so difficult for you.

Is the DVD drive still good? That's typically the first thing to go on a computer.

Do you have the right DVD for the model?
- Tell us what you have (sticker on the back of Mac)
- Tell us what the CD says in terms of supported model

 

[Designer Dale]

These machines were property of National Geographic before you got them. Maybe the DVD drives were disabled to prevent installation or copying of unauthorized material. It does sound like the machine is preventing you from using the DVD drive. Maybe find or borrow a FireWire DVD drive and run the disk from there? I'm not sure, but you could try to boot in Target Disk mode from your friends MacBook and use that as a remote DVD for installing.

The grey Restore disks are not ment for installing an OS, which is what it seems you need to do. You must have an over the counter style boxed install DVD to do that.

I'm not a tech and I know you are frustrated. Keep in mind that they were free and it seems that they were given away because they were broken. Fixing stuff is a headache. Fixing stuff you aren't familiar with is a migraine.


Dale

 

[zpaitsel]

Normal method:
1. Put install disk in
2. Boot while holding ALT / OPTION key
3. Select dvd, install
Not sure why it's so difficult for you.

Is the DVD drive still good? That's typically the first thing to go on a computer.

Do you have the right DVD for the model?
- Tell us what you have (sticker on the back of Mac)
- Tell us what the CD says in terms of supported model

Well first off let me say that it's not a difficult concept, but appreciate the sarcasm anyway. I know pc inside and out, nothing at all about mac(reason why I am putting this piece of sh#T together in the first place... education.

The DVD drive spins up and you can physically feel the disc spinning inside the drive(going by vibration) the drive is a DVD R/W and came directly out of another one of the G5 computers I have. If you read my earlier post it says when I boot with ALT/OPTION I am unable to select any of the options and then I see a pictur of a little watch with the dials turning then the dials stop turning and it freezes(that's where it gets stuck). booting holding down command C, it will never boot to the DVD drive no matter what... I know the drive is good because it recognizes the install disc during the ALT/OPTION boot choice, I can see it.. just not boot to it.. I am beginning to think it's a hardware problem of some nature.. there again I do not have a Hardware diagnostics disc/but the grey osx install dvd has H/W diag in it(again seen from option boot menu) but I can't select that either.

I'm at work so I can give details on the drive model and such once I get back home tonight around 530pm EST.

thanks for any help. Even though It may seem I know nothing...I do have common sense when it comes to this but when things don't act right..combined with my lack of knowledge.. well you get the point.

 

[minifridge1138]

thanks for any help. Even though It may seem I know nothing...I do have common sense when it comes to this but when things don't act right..combined with my lack of knowledge.. well you get the point.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think you're an idiot.

What's confusing is you're doing everything you should do, it just isn't working.

I have 3 ideas
1) Failed hardware. You're out of luck.
2) All of the Macs had a firmware password set. I would have expected that to get cleared when you replaced the battery (I thought you said you did that) OR when you changed the ram configuration and tried to boot (I don't remember the exact steps, but it's something like that).
3) you have the wrong install discs. Just like a restore disk from a DELL won't work with an HP, apple restore disks (which absolutely are meant to do a clean install of the OS) only work with the machine they shipped with. The make/model of the machine is included in the firmware, and the install disk has a list of make/models that it is allowed to work with (you can actually modify this list and remove the restriction but that's another thread). I wasn't paying attention one day and tried to use a restore disk from an INTEL mac on a PowerPC mac. It did almost exactly what you're describing (it just hung on a spinning wheel)


What's really a shame is that you're either going to get frustrated and give up on macs OR you're going to get it working and be an expert on an obsolete set of hardware.

 

[Consultant]

<snip>

The problem is, all the information you've provided are vauge and are not useful for troubleshooting.

Since you supposedly changed the mobo, you need to provide the specs of the computer where the mobo came from. As the previous post suspected, I also think you have the wrong install disk if you can select the dvd disk.

 

[zpaitsel]

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think you're an idiot.

What's confusing is you're doing everything you should do, it just isn't working.

I have 3 ideas
1) Failed hardware. You're out of luck.
2) All of the Macs had a firmware password set. I would have expected that to get cleared when you replaced the battery (I thought you said you did that) OR when you changed the ram configuration and tried to boot (I don't remember the exact steps, but it's something like that).
3) you have the wrong install discs. Just like a restore disk from a DELL won't work with an HP, apple restore disks (which absolutely are meant to do a clean install of the OS) only work with the machine they shipped with. The make/model of the machine is included in the firmware, and the install disk has a list of make/models that it is allowed to work with (you can actually modify this list and remove the restriction but that's another thread). I wasn't paying attention one day and tried to use a restore disk from an INTEL mac on a PowerPC mac. It did almost exactly what you're describing (it just hung on a spinning wheel)


What's really a shame is that you're either going to get frustrated and give up on macs OR you're going to get it working and be an expert on an obsolete set of hardware.

Well That makes total sense.. I didn't understand that what I had was a restore disk I was under the impression it was the operating system all together. I will go get a copy of leopard and try to install. I am assuming I couldn't make a selection because the disc was not a retail version but a restore version for a Hardware Configuration(this very well may be my problem).

I'm not looking to give up on mac's just yet by any means. I am just looking to fix this one to play around with it and give mac a chance since I have used pc for so long.

If I have a good experience once I get this thing up and running I am interested in the idea of buying a new intel mac(as I am seeing are much better). This one I believe I will just use as a media machine once It is up and running.

Thanks alot

 

[minifridge1138]

I'm glad to hear you haven't lost interest yet.
I believe all of the restore disks are grey (every one I have is and that ranges from 0S 9.1 to 10.5). It will say what Mac they are meant to restore.

The retail disks are Usually Black or White.

A retail Leopard disk is difficult to find without paying a lot of money. I've seen them sell on eBay for $150 and more.

A Tiger disk (10.4) can be found for $25. Supply and Demand i suppose.

Something I said but didn't elaborate on, I got the spinning wheel when using an Intel disk on a PowerPC mac. Sometimes you get a Kernel Panic, sometimes you get a spinning wheel.

When simply using the wrong models disk, it usually boots to the install process, but doesn't let you get very far before telling you the disk can't be used with your mac.

10.5 was released for both Intel And PowerPC. The retail install disk works on both systems. An intel restore disk only works on an intel mac. There wouldn't be a PowerPC restore disk for 10.5 because it was released after Apple Switched to Intel chips, therefore no powerpc ever shipped with 10.5.

 

[Ccrew]

.

A retail Leopard disk is difficult to find without paying a lot of money. I've seen them sell on eBay for $150 and more.

Really? I have a couple here,that's Beer $

For what it's worth I ran this by one of my engineers who worked at NatGeo for years (NatGeo is also around the corner from my office) They didn't ever put password locks on the firmware.

to the OP If you don't get anywhere ping me by PM and I'll see if I can get you hooked up with either restore discs for the G5, or something retail that will load. I know I have them in 10.4 and have retail of everything to SL (and a Lion USB stick) I'm in NOVA, and like I said, work a block from NatGeo

 

[zpaitsel]

Forget about OS X. Apple no longer supports PowerPC-versions of their software, and almost all third party vendors dropped the support, too.

Install Linux on that machine, you'll be MUCH happier with it.

Daily builds of the forthcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release are once again available for PowerPC machines:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

If you prefer Mint, you can get it from here:

http://www.mintppc.org/content/installation-instructions-mintppc-11

You can also download Fedora 16 for 64-Bit PowerPCs from one of those mirrors:

https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/16/ppc64/

Debian, of course, is also available for PowerPC machines and there is even a FreeBSD port available.

In other words, there are many operating systems available for your PowerMac that are still very much ALIVE. You're better off using one of those.

Just my unpopular two cents.

quick question, Does it matter how I burn this to make it a bootable img. Basically I will be burning it from my pc, will the mac have a problem reading it?? I'm trying one tonight..just looking for some insighit