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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Powermac G5 won't boot

Basvaldo - Sep 6, 2007 - 7:18 am

When attempting to boot my G5 I hear the chime, then I see the grey apple screen, but it doesn't go any further than this. The fans start blowing rather loudly but that's all that happens.

I've tried some advice that I have picked up on the web: Taking out all but Apple installed RAM, but this doesn't help. I've tried zapping PRAM, but this doesn't work, the machine doesn't chime at all when I try this. I've also tried resetting NVRAM in Open Firmware mode, using the commands 'reset-nvram', 'set defaults' and then 'reset-all', which also doesn't work as the machine fails to restart after the 'reset-all' command.

Prior to this I installed a new hard drive as the installed drive died. I couldn't even see it when booting via Firewire from another Mac. I inserted the new drive and installed OSX via firewire from my laptop as I was unable to boot from CD.

On one occasion I was able to restart in Open firmware mode before I installed the new drive. This then restarted and booted from the OSX CD by default. However this crashed/froze shortly after the boot, I'm certain that the HD failure wasn't, the only issue.

Can anyone shed any light on what is wrong? Is there something I was supposed to have done when installing the new HD? I was under the impression that the mac would look for the first bootable drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

Andy

Serenak - Sep 6, 2007 - 5:49 pm

Andy

Thanks for using macosx.com - I will try and offer what advice I can for you.

Can you tell me if it is a G5 Tower or a G5 iMac?

I recently had a similar problem with a G5 iMac because my 2 year old started it up and then pulled out the power cable I couldn't get Single User or anything and the OF reset and PRAM reset did nothing...

I managed to bring it back by using the installer DVD and doing an "Archive & Install" preserving users and settings...

However I have to say that it doesn't sound too good... can you get the hardware test CD to run? Or can you get "Single User" mode? (hold down the Apple and S on start up...) You will get some scary looking Unix stuff if you can - at the prompt type /sbin/fsck -fy (this is helpfully displayed above the prompt for you).

FWIW - fsck is File System ChecK and -fy is Force (fix) Yes
(or as most of us read it "f*ck... [fix it?] f*ck yes!

It should then do the full disk check - if it returns no errors great, if it says errors were fixed repeat the /sbin/fsck -fy until no repairs were necessary or it is obvious it cannot fix the problem... (if the latter seek professional help)

Once it comes back clean the correct command is shutdown -r now (Shutdown and restart now...)

If none of these show any sign of allowing you to install or boot in a half normal manner (from installer disk, via FW etc.) I would suggest you seek out a professional hardware engineer... as you may have a much more serious problem.

Totally as an aside I once had a G4 iBook go very bad like that after being firewire connected to a bad HD that brought the pair of them down... Only rescue I managed there was to use a PPC Linux installer CD (Kubuntu 6 IIRC) to totally wipe the HDD - once the HDD was in Reiser FS I was able to boot from the usual installer DVD and reformat back to HFS+ do a clean install of OS X and then restore from my NAS backup...

Good luck and please let me know what happens..