Hard Drive On G5 Boot Up Issues

M

mgmex

Registered
HELP! Sorry, I'm new to forums, I hope you can help me resolve my problems.
My Mac g5 won't boot up. I've done everything I know to try and start it up but I'm lost.
None of the startup keys work and I have a snow leopard disk stuck in the disk drive.
HELP! and THANKS
 
No power what so ever?

Plus to get a disk out of a Mac just hold down the left mouse button while booting and it will eject the primary drive.
 
As you now should know, Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.x) can't boot a G5. Snow Leopard is too new! You need the older 10.5 (Leopard), or maybe 10.4 (Tiger). Either of those will work.
Do you have a PowerMac G5 (tower), or is it an iMac G5 (white all-in-one)?

You can shut the power off, then restart, while continuing to hold your left mouse button. The drive will eject the disk within a few seconds after the screen lights up.
 
Thanks for the responses. I checked the threads in this subject for a couple of hours with out find what I needed. I have an iMac G5. I wasn't aware of the left mouse button. Dose the left mouse start up the hard drive. The special start up key strokes/commands won't work. I even tried restarting while pushing the eject key, this should normally eject the disk. I did get disk utilities to work twice, it seemed to get worse the more key commands I tried to start up with. I have 10.5 loaded on the hard drive, but it wouldn't even start with the Tiger start up disks. My best guess is that the hard drive is a goner. Can anyone recommend where I can get a good/cheep drive? The current drive was a T1. I'll be able to reinstall using Time machine once the hard drive is addressed fixed or bought.
 
mgmex said:
... I have an iMac G5. I wasn't aware of the left mouse button. Dose the left mouse start up the hard drive. The special start up key strokes/commands won't work. I even tried restarting while pushing the eject key, this should normally eject the disk. I did get disk utilities to work twice, it seemed to get worse the more key commands I tried to start up with. ... My best guess is that the hard drive is a goner. Can anyone recommend where I can get a good/cheep drive?...
Click to expand...

Left mouse button is just the normal mouse button, and does nothing unusual, except that it will eject an optical disk, if one is still in the drive at boot. You just have to hold the left button from the time you hear the boot chime sound. That has no effect on the hard drive... Why would you ask that question?

Yes, a mostly dead hard drive might interfere with booting to any disk or external hard drives, etc.
Which iMac G5 do you have? If it has the front bezel isight camera, it's quite challenging to replace the hard drive. The older iMac G5 (no camera) are very simple to open the back, and remove the hard drive. You can probably replace the hard drive in less than 2 minutes, if you have everything you need. The iSight iMac, on the other hand, likely would need at least 20 minutes - if you know where all the screws are, and have the right tools, mostly because the LCD panel has to come out.
If yours is the easy, older G5, (3 screws on the bottom edge, then lift off the back cover. The screws just loosen, don't try to remove completely.) then you can unplug, or just remove the hard drive, probably boot to anything you like then.

If you don't really have a local shop where you shop for "cheap stuff), then I would look on Amazon for hard drives. Or, your favorite place to make purchases on the net.
 
mgmex said:
Thanks for the responses. I checked the threads in this subject for a couple of hours with out find what I needed. I have an iMac G5. I wasn't aware of the left mouse button. Dose the left mouse start up the hard drive..
Click to expand...

The answer is no. If you want more keyboard commands bookmark the Apple Suport site OS X: Keyboard Shortcuts.

To replace the drive look at this video.
 
In Satcomer's post, the video is for the older iMac G5, with the removable back cover.
If it is the later iSight G5 iMac, the repair is much more involved, as the hard drive is behind the LCD panel.
 
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