Can't use Install Disk for startup

Hi
Having a perplexing problem with my macbook Dual Core 2GHz that I bought at an auction Starts up fine from it's hard disk. However, as I want to erase the hard drive I was trying to start up from a an OSX install disk. When I put the OSX disk in, select it and and click restart as instructed, the computer shuts down and tries to restart from the disk but then keeps shutting down and restarting until the OSX disk is removed without ever getting to the apple logo. I also tried swapping the hard drive with the same result as well as trying an external boot hard drive (using the option command a startup)- same result again. I thought this might be because the previous owner might have set an open firmware password and tried the removing some RAM and doing the Resetting PRAM trick. This did nothing. Anyone please have any ideas about this as it has become very frustrating

Hi macnaughty and welcome to Apple Discussions!
There are a couple of possibilities here. First, is the install disk the one that came with the computer? Such disks are machine specific, so if the seller gave you one that came with another model of computer, even if it's a MacBook disk, it won't work.
Also, any retail install disk that has an OS on it that is earlier than what came with your MacBook will not work.
Lastly, it is possible that the disk, even though it is the correct one, may be damaged.
You can contact Apple and they will generally be able to get you the correct disk. There is usually a small charge but you'll get what you need.
Best of luck.

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Hi,
I ran the Mac Disk Utility on my MacBook Pro's HD and I got this screen:
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l320/brunotapia/help.gif
[IMG]http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l320/brunotapia/help.gif[/IMG]
So I inserted the install disk so that I could boot up from the CD and run disk utility to repair my HD.
But the MacBook Pro keeps spitting out the disk. It reads other disks fine and this install disk reads on my friends computer so I know that both the MacBook Pro drive and the install disk are ok. So what could be causing my problem?
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Any information would be greatly appreciated.
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Are you using the OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer? To startup from the installer disc first insert the disc in the optical drive (label side up.) If the computer does not allow the disc to mount on the Desktop then either your optical drive is bad or the installer disc is damaged or is not a valid installer disc for your model.
If the disc mounts on the Desktop then restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the "C" key until the spinning gear appears beneath the dark gray Apple logo.
If this still doesn't work then boot the computer into single-user mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until the computer starts up to a black screen with white print. At the prompt enter or paste in the following:
/sbin/fsck -yf
Press return and wait. If you receive a message that the drive required repairs, then re-run the above command line until you receive a message that says the filesystem is OK. If you have to repeat the command more than seven times without receiving a filesystem OK message, then that means the drive cannot be repaired by fsck. If you have a utility such as Disk Warrior 4.0 or TechTool Pro 4.5.2 then you can boot from their CDs and attempt to repair the drive. If either or both fail then the drive will need to be reformatted.
I highly recommend backing up.
Yes, you can boot from any external drive provided it has a bootable copy of OS X installed on it. If you have a second Mac with Firewire ports then you can connect it to the MBP via a Firewire cable. Boot the MBP into Target Disk Mode and the other computer normally. The MBP's hard drive should appear on the other computer's Desktop. You can then repair the drive using Disk Utility or other disk repair utility.
Why reward points?(Quoted from Discussions Terms of Use.)
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Members may reward you with 5 points if they deem that your reply is helpful and 10 points if you post a solution to their issue. Likewise, when you mark a reply as Helpful or Solved in your own created topic, you will be awarding the respondent with the same point values.

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Fdisk and format show different cylinders can't use whole disk for solaris?

Solaris 10 5/09 s10x_u7wos_08 X86
Format did not show enough cylinders, so we can't use whole raid5 (4x 146GB) volume.
How can we fix it? We need the full raid5 volume for our solaris.
formatAVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c2t0d0 <DEFAULT cyl 17817 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63>
/pci@0,0/pci10de,375@f/pci108e,286@0/disk@0,0
Specify disk (enter its number):
fdisk outputTotal disk size is 53502 cylinders
Cylinder size is 16065 (512 byte) blocks
Cylinders
Partition Status Type Start End Length %
========= ====== ============ ===== === ====== ===
1 Active Solaris2 1 17819 17819 33
arcconf getconfigbash-3.00# ./arcconf getconfig 1
Controllers found: 1
Controller information
Controller Status : Optimal
Channel description : SAS/SATA
Controller Model : Sun STK RAID INT
Controller Serial Number : 00919AA0670
Physical Slot : 0
Temperature : 71 C/ 159 F (Normal)
Installed memory : 256 MB
Copyback : Disabled
Background consistency check : Disabled
Automatic Failover : Enabled
Global task priority : High
Defunct disk drive count : 0
Logical devices/Failed/Degraded : 1/0/0
Controller Version Information
BIOS : 5.2-0 (16732)
Firmware : 5.2-0 (16732)
Driver : 2.2-2 (1)
Boot Flash : 5.2-0 (16732)
Controller Battery Information
Status : Optimal
Over temperature : No
Capacity remaining : 99 percent
Time remaining (at current draw) : 3 days, 1 hours, 11 minutes
Logical device information
Logical device number 0
Logical device name : v
RAID level : 5
Status of logical device : Optimal
Size : 419690 MB
Stripe-unit size : 256 KB
Read-cache mode : Enabled
Write-cache mode : Enabled (write-back)
Write-cache setting : Enabled (write-back)
Partitioned : Yes
Protected by Hot-Spare : No
Bootable : Yes
Failed stripes : No
Logical device segment information
Segment 0 : Present (0,0) 000849E5RY9A P4X5RY9A
Segment 1 : Present (0,1) 000849E4TX4A P4X4TX4A
Segment 2 : Present (0,2) 000849E56KAA P4X56KAA
Segment 3 : Present (0,3) 000849E5S0GA P4X5S0GA
Physical Device information
Device #0 - 3
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SAS 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device : 0,0
Reported Location : Enclosure 0, Slot 0
Reported ESD : 2,0
Vendor : HITACHI
Model : H101414SCSUN146G
Firmware : SA25
Serial number : 000849E5RY9A P4X5RY9A
World-wide name : 5000CCA0007B2BFF
Size : 140009 MB
Write Cache : Disabled (write-through)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No
Device #4
Device is an Enclosure services device
Reported Channel,Device : 2,0
Enclosure ID : 0
Type : SES2
Vendor : ADAPTEC
Model : Virtual SGPIO
Firmware : 0001
Status of Enclosure services device
Temperature : Normal
Device #5
Device is an Enclosure services device
Reported Channel,Device : 2,1
Enclosure ID : 1
Type : SES2
Vendor : ADAPTEC
Model : Virtual SGPIO
Firmware : 0001
Status of Enclosure services device
Temperature : Normal

astra666 wrote:
Hi Smart71,
I know it sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
You need to select the option to manually edit the disk label
when you install solaris.
Your problem is that you have assigned 73 GB for your / (root)
and 63 GB for your swap. That's not the problem that I see. The problem is that the Solaris partition (and therefore the Solaris VTOC label inside) is only for 136GB. But the actual underlying storage is 409GB. So the entire partition and the VTOC have to be rewritten.
You only have 2 options. Either re-install Solaris, of re-partition the disk.
If you don't have a spare disk to copy root to and you want to use
the whole disk, with just one / root partition, you will need to shrink /swap
create another slice to copy root to temporarily, and then re-partition your disk. Agreed reinstalling is easiest. But moving slices around will not let you change the VTOC size.
eg:
boot from CD into single user mode.
partition the disk so that eg:
swap is 3 GB. eg: ( from cylinder 1 to cylinder 400 )
partition 3 is 7 GB ( from cylinder 401 to cylinder 1318 )
( if 7 GB is enough to hold all your / data )
write the disk label out
newfs partition 3
mount / on /a
mount partition 3 on /mnt
Copy everything from /a to /mnt eg:
rsync -vaxH /a /mnt
or
find /a -xdev -print | cpio -pdam /mnt
umount /a and /mnt
re partition the disk so that / takes all the free space.If that were your goal, you wouldn't have to move anything. Just repartition and use 'growfs' on the root filesystem directly (while booted from CD).
eg ( starting at cylinder 1319 to cylinder 17816 )
write disk label out
newfs part 0 for /
mount / on /a and part 3 on /mnt
copy everything back from /mnt to /a
Check /a to make sure everything is there.
umount /a and /mnt
re partition the disk to make /swap 10 GB
( starting at cylinder 1 to cylinder 1318 )
write disk label out.
And that's it.
The disk you are working on is 17816 cylinders in size.
yet down the bottom you say that :
Total disk size is 53502 cylinders
That tells me there are 4 disks in the raid 5 set, and that
you have probably been presented with 3 x 136 GB disks.
That means that you should have 2 x 136 GB disks free.
Use one of these to copy your /root to. and then
re-partition your first disk and copy data back.
Or partition another disk correctly, write a boot block to it
Copy your root data to it, and boot from it.The entire disk is presented to the machine (as seen in the fdisk output), but the Solaris partition is only using the smaller portion of it. You can't create a second Solaris partition and use it at the same time, either. Only one Solaris partition can be used at a time.
Darren

Where can I purchase install disks for G4

I have purchased a second hand G4 and do not have the correct install disks that include Classic 9.x as I need Classic to run the software I have. Where might I find/purchase replacement install disk(s)?

To give exacting advice, we are going to need the exact model of g4.
Query by serial number
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https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
This site provides more information, but lacks security.
"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
or
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http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
( hint by K Shaffer )

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The computer model is
Apple Model No:
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Model ID:
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Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
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MillerPhotographics:
The new HDD needs to be formatted first. Here are step-by-step directions to get your there:
Formatting, Partitioning Erasing a Hard Disk Drive
Warning! This procedure will destroy all data on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure you have an up-to-date, tested backup of at least your Users folder and any third party applications you do not want to re-install before attempting this procedure.
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• Select language
• Go to the Utilities menu (Tiger) Installer menu (Panther & earlier) and launch Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel. (You are about to create a single partition volume.)
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(Note 1: One partition is normally preferable for an internal HDD.)
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• Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
• Select Erase tab
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• Open Installer and begin installation.
• Choose to Customize and deselect Foreign Language Translations and Additional Printer drivers.
• (Optional) Check box to install X11 (Tiger) BSD Subsystems (Panther & earlier).
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After installation computer will restart for setup.
• After setup, reboot computer.
• Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select First Aid in main panel.
• Click Repair Disk Permissions.
• Connect to Internet.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.4.11 Combo update (PPC) (Tiger)
Computer will restart.
• Repair Disk Permissions as previously.
• Go to Apple Menu > Software Update.
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Computer may restart after updates.
• Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select First Aid in main panel.
• Click Repair Disk Permissions.
Please read through directions and be sure you understand it, and do post back with questions about anything that is not quite clear.
Good luck.
cornelius

Can't use Install Disk for startup

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