What could be wrong with a Powermac G4 that won't boot from a CD?

[styxfan]

Someone wants to sell me their Powermac G4 1.25 Dual for 200 bucks but it doesn't have an OS and it won't boot from a cd. They are in another state, so they'd ship it to me, meaning I can't try it out...

Anyone know if something serious could be wrong? It's probably just a drive, but I don't want to buy it and have it be something else.

 

[Consultant]

Someone wants to sell me their Powermac G4 1.25 Dual for 200 bucks but it doesn't have an OS and it won't boot from a cd. They are in another state, so they'd ship it to me, meaning I can't try it out...

Anyone know if something serious could be wrong? It's probably just a drive, but I don't want to buy it and have it be something else.

Um, shipping is always a bad idea unless you know the people, especially when you cannot inspect the item.

Worst case scenario: everything including logic board, cpu, hardrive is dead/fried. You are essentially getting a case.

Best case scenario: they have no clue. But if they tried to boot from a CD, they have some clue.

Why would they NOT have a harddrive to boot it up or test it? If they have another mac they can use it as a firewire drive. How did they erase the harddrive if they cannot boot from a CD? You need to boot from another device to erase the boot drive.

So I would be cautious.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

AFAIK, thats a really low price for that particular machine......I'd be very suspicious