# imac G5 will not boot/recognize HD



## kevanu (May 29, 2006)

Hi all-

I am trying to help fix my sisters imac g5 which has recently given up on her. She is currently 6months passed warranty so getting it serviced won't be too easy. I have been fiddling around with it and these are the symptoms.

The first time I turn it on it will not make any startup sound at all. The ambient light glows longer than usual and then disappears and then the display remains black and unlit. After a few minutes of being on, the fans will turn on full force (very louder than usual) and will just continue to remain in the same state. 

Note: that if I turn it off and restart it up again before the fans come on, the same process will repeat over and over, however, If the fans come on-the next time I restart it the startup sound will play and then the display will turn on and show a dark blank grey screen. No apple logo will appear at all. I am not able to go into Single-User mode (even though i hold apple+s). The only thing I am capable of doing is booting up from a CD by pressing C at startup. I ran disk utility from the Tiger installation cd, repaired disk errors and permissions until it said everything was ok. Also grabbed Diskwarrior and ran that, that went okay as well.

I have also ran the hardware test cd to find an error code given to me while Mass Storage is undergoing testing. it usually randomizes the number but the error message is usually the same format.

*** ERROR CODE ***
2STF/1/4
2STF/3/3/:S-ATA Bus 0- Master
2STF/4/3/:S-ATA Bus 0- Master
2STF/1/4/:S-ATA Bus 0- Master
*** ERROR CODE ***

Ok, This is where it gets really strange. Out of nowhere after reseting about 50 times, the normal booting process began. Apple logo displayed instead of darker grey screen and began OS X and everything seemed normal. From there on the computer will work like it used to. Of course I took the opportunity to back up photos and other precious files. Now, when running the hardware test cd, Mass Storage seem to be running normally without errors (HUH?). So this is where I gather that the HDD must be faulty. Most of the time it doesnt work and randomly it will decide to work. 

So I decided I will give reformatting a chance. Did a clean reformat/install of Tiger. Comptuer ran fine... until I turned it off for quite sometime. Process began at square one again. (display remains unlit/no startup sound/fans will come on full force/restart/startup sound/display turns on to grey blank screen and will remain blank forever)

I am completely clueless on what's wrong here. I'm thinking it will be either the HDD or Logic Board that needs replacement? I have also performed hardware trouble shooting by testing different outlets, unplugging all devices, and even resorting to resetting the PMU. All LED's seem to be functioning perfectly.

Thanks (to anyone who reads this and helps me in advance)
-Kevin


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## DeltaMac (May 29, 2006)

Check this link - http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/
You may find something familiar on that page, and Apple will repair those issues. You may also have a failing hard drive, which is not part of that program, but something easy to replace, and relatively cheap to do that.


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## kevanu (May 30, 2006)

DeltaMac: Thanks for the reply. I will try to see what happens when I take it in for the extension program repair since it qualifies. Though the HDD might be faulty like I suspected, I am pretty sure I can manage to replace it like you said. I was more concerned with power issue.


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## kevanu (May 31, 2006)

So she took it in today and it qualified. Problem settled. Thanks again.


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