New horrible problem with Tiger!

C

Chrlyon

Registered
Hey guys, you were super helpful a couple of months ago when I needed help with my old iBook G4. Now I have a new, related problem :D, this time with an old G5 desktop computer (also running version 10.4). With this one I'm getting past the gray screen to a blank blue screen. Sometimes my cursor appears, and sometimes the pinwheel shows up. The bad thing is this time it will NOT recognize the start-up disk. I've even started it up in safe mode and the disk is just not there. Sometimes the computer spits it out when I start it up, other times it just ignores it.

So what the hell do I do this time?
 
Chrlyon said:
...

So what the hell do I do this time?
Click to expand...
It sounds like your hard drive has failed. If so, then there is nothing that you can do to un-fail it.

Have you tried to boot from the System Restore disc or the OS distribution DVD? If it boots from either disc, then you know for certain that your problem is a failed hard drive.
 
Sorry, I misspoke. It won't recognize the Mac OsX DVD. It actually sees the HD in safe mode (but it won't start up), but the DVD doesn't exist as far as the computer is concerned. And I JUST used that DVD... there's nothing wrong with it.
 
That G5 - is it a PowerMac G5 (tower), or an iMac?

If you have an iMac, does yours have a camera at the top of the display?

A G5 tower is very easy to replace the DVD drive, new drives can be found for less than $30.
A G5 iMac (if without a front camera) is also pretty simple to replace the burner, although the drives are somewhat more expensive.
You can also, on either, try cleaning the drive with a CD/DVD drive cleaning disk.
 
It's a tower.

What an odd coincidence that my disk drive AND hard drive failed at the same time :D.

Thanks for your help.
 
See if you can boot from your OS X installer, after DISCONNECTING the hard drive. Of course, you still won't see the hard drive, but if your Mac then boots, and behaves while booting to the DVD - that sometimes can simply be the result of a badly failed hard drive that prevents booting to anything else. And, the fix is equally simple, just replace the hard drive with a new one. I hope that helps you...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top