G5 wont boot from installation disk?

Any suggestions for a G5 that wont boot from the installation CD? Regular starts fail at the grey screen with the apple logo. I've re-set PRAM and SMU, and replaced the battery. G5 passed the Disk Utility tests and the hardware test run over firewire from a PowerBook. I've tried booting from the CD while holding down the various keys. Runs fine in terminal mode so I've saved all my files. Not sure where to go from here. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi choriocapillaris, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Can we assume it booted from this Install Disc before, or could this be an Install Disc from another Mac?
If it is the right Disc, put it in the PB, boot the PB into Target mode...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
Boot the G5 with the Option key held down & see if the Install Disc in the PB eventually shows up as a boot choice for the G5.

Similar Messages

Booting from Installer Disk

I have an issue with a 12" 867Mhz Powerbook G4.
It was showing the file/question mark icon on boot. Booting from a 10.4 retail DVD and running disk utility confirmed that the hard drive had died. I replaced the hard drive with a new 80GB IDE drive.
Next step is to install 10.4, but it will no longer boot from the disk. I turn it on holding alt and get the option to boot from the disk - the machine recognises that it is a Tiger install disk. When I select it I'm taken to the grey screen with the Apple logo and then it seems to hang. The DVD spins for a while and seems to be in use but then it stops.
Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this and what I can do to resolve it? I have checked the disk in another mac and it is working correctly.

Yes, it sounds like you didn't connect the new drive correctly, or tripped over the optical drive upon doing so. One thing you can try is the startup manager, instead of the 'C' key, as the 'C' key doesn't always work. The startup manager is used among other things to boot the Hardware test volume, but you can also use it to force boot up the installer:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA27043?viewlocale=en_US
256 MB of RAM is hardly enough, even though it is the required minimum. And what can happen if you don't have enough RAM, some may be of sufficiently low quality, that it can't get everything it needs into memory. If after upgrading the RAM following specs*:
http://www.macmaps.com/badram.html
you still can't boot the disc with the startup manager, have an authorized service technician determine how badly you might have munged the hard drive installation.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

How to undo boot camp, wont boot from install disk in dvd drive

A few months ago I went through trying out boot camp and parallels. Now, I think something is messed up. I dont need either right now, so I just want to wipe out the whole system, repartition the drive, and restore to a blank new install of os x 10.5 leopard.
But when I put in the install disk, it wont boot up off it.
I tried holding down the c key while powering it up, and it just cycles through: hearing the drive whirl, a bling sound, and then repeating it again while the screen is blank. Finally, I held down the click button on the touch pad so it would eject the install disk.
Maybe this will help someone recognize part of the problem. Ever since messing around with boot camp and parallels, my machine wont "reboot". To reboot it, I tell it to reboot, then it hangs on the star like screen, then I have to hold the power button down, then if I do nothing, it tries to boot, but ends up in a dos looking screen saying no bootable device. So when I power it back up, I hold down the alt key, and then I have one choice: the hard drive. I pick that and it boots up ok.
So... I thought, well, maybe the boot camp is still messed up; maybe I should undo boot camp. When I start the boot camp assistant, there is only a "partition" and "back" button; nothing to "restore" the hard drive to just one partition.
What can I do? I want to wipe the drive and install a fresh install from my install disk.

Forgot to specify:
Im using an older Unibody Macbook (back when they were not all macbook pro's) 2008ish with Snow leopard 1.6.8
The thread you linked me to, Eric, shows the guy 'Niganit' with the eXACT SAME PROBLEM as me! He seems to have found out the problem but I dont see his resolve.
I just dont have the option to install windows 7 in any other form that a cd
a picture;

Can't create rescue disk nor boot from installation disk

I can't make a rescue disk. Get an error message. As instructed I booted from the Windows 7 install disc and it comes up with no mouse or keyboard support. What is displayed is the choice of languages. Can't get a command prompt. Am I missing
something?
System is a MSI 297-3 board running Windows 7 64 bit. 1 hardrive and 1 dvd.

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New HDD installed in PowerBook G3, won't boot from installation disk.

I just installed a new hard drive in my G3 Wallstreet and I can't get it to boot from the original Apple CD.
I've tried holding the C key as well as +⌥+⇧+⌫, but to no avail.
The CD tests fine in my old iMac G4, so maybe the culprit is the optical drive, but then again, I'm not so sure.
Is there a way to either boot my PowerBook or install OSX from my iMac G4?
Message was edited by: rick268 Also, I can boot into Open Firmware just fine.

Thanks for your help.
WeLoveMacs wanted $50, but I just scored an entire topcase on eBay for $15, shipped. We'll see what happens.
Allan Jones wrote:
I maintatined three Wallstreets for a friend for years. They stayed in regular service from new until he replaced them with MacBook Pros last summer!
In the years of keeping the old soldiers almost relavent, I ran into a "won't boot from a system disk" issue on two of them. In both cases, replacing a dead PRAM battery fixed the issue. Don't ask me why but that was the only thing that fixed them.
When I was supporting those, you could still get new Wallstreet batteries from Other World Computing. Today they no longer show them. I'm not sure where to steer your for a new one. USed batteries are like used chewing gum, IMHO.
You can try disconecting the wire from the PRAM battery to the logic board. That might help. Requires some take-down:
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/PowerBook_G3_Wallstreet

Disable booting from installer disk

Is there a way to prevent booting from the intaller disk for security? I need to prevent a user from reinstalling the OS or resetting the password.

Hi Gnarlodious ,
yes, you can do what you want with a firmware password. For detailed instructions read this article: Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X 10.1 or later
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Mac Won't Boot From Installation Disk

After doing a software update, my Mac Pro got stuck on the gray screen after restart (seems like a very common problem recently). I am able to boot into safe mode by holding shift (only works like 10% of the time) and verified permissions. It says I need to repair my disk, but i can only do this by booting from my install disk.
However, I can not boot from my install disk. It gets stuck at the gray screen every single time.
I have done everything recommended in this post with no success: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Am I screwed here? So irritated that this all happened because of Mac's own software update. I have wasted HOURS troubleshooting and it looks like my only option is to pay to have it serviced.
Any help is appreciated.

I don't have a cloned copy. How do I clone to an external disc?
A clone is a copy made from a functioning Mac using clone software like CCC or SuperDuper!. You say you can boot into safe mode#. This is a bit unconventional, but you could try the following; you will need a functioning external hard drive, formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition map. If these details are elusive or vague to you, research this yourself beforehand.
With a functioning external harddrive, see if you can download, and install the SuperDuper applicaton, in the Applications folder and use it to make a copy (ie a clone) of your HD onto the Ext. HD. When all finished restart and hold down the Option key to give you the chance to boot into the external hard drive clone*. If that is possible, then you can run its Disk Utility and perform a Repair Disk on the internal Macintosh HD, and hopefully correct whatever error exists.
#Being able to boot into safe mode suggest there may be some software being loaded in normal mode that is causing the problem, but is difficult to diagnose. What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
*if at this point it does not boot, there is not much more to try.
Another variation, more straight forward would be to use Disk Warrior, although expensive, it is a good disk utility that may resurrect your boot process, but it is expensive, and it all depends on whether your Mac can boot into it as well. If it can't see it you would be facing the same problem.
What was the update you did that lead to this?
Message was edited by: roam

MacPro wont boot from any disk other than the main HD

Hi all,
I want to startup my MacPro from a different drive other than the main (original) Macintosh HD, so I can do maintenance and for emergencies.
However, I cannot startup from a DVD. Not DiskWarrior, or even the retail Snow Leopard disk.
I attempted to install the OS on another internal drive, but the intallation seemed to fail (the disk I tried to install onto was Mac OS Extended, Case-sensitive, Journaled, but there were no complaints from the installer.)
So even though my computer runs OK, and I can continue doing work etc, I am unable to do the maintenance that I believe it needs.
I have tried to:
• Run the updated DiskWarrior DVD
• Run the SL instal DVD
• Taken all the extra wires/drives out of the back of the computer
• Attempted to install the OS onto a second internal drive
I have not:
• Zapped the PRAM yet.
• Run the computer in target disk mode and worked on it from my MacBook
• Run the MacBook in target mode to use its DVD drive.
This problem has come up before on this machine. I can't remember what the problem was, other than I used to run the MacPro on its side. No longer. Not for the last few months.
Anybody come across this before? Any ideas?
Thanks,
Aaron

You could use CCC to do a trimmed down clone and leave out most of the sub folders. Do a 2nd clone to have a full working copy.
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.2
Cloning as a Backup Strategy
My guess is one of your drives needs to be reinitialized. Only during format will the hidden partition blocks be tested, and of course a healthy set of partitions created, things that cannot be repaired normally - though Lion Recovery partition does have abilty to check the health of partition tables. And about the only reason I'd even buy Lion!
Check partition table health in Lion's Disk Utility
Manage all partitions with Disk Utility in OS X

Disk Utility broken while booted from Installation CDs??

Situation: I have a Macbook Pro with a 120 GB HDD. I had partitioned it into two partitions, and later desired that I should have only one partition on the drive. I booted the Mac OS X installation CDs and attempted the following three-step procedure:
1. Use Disk Utility to image my system partition into a file on an external USB drive
2. Verify the image and repartition ("Erase") my laptop's internal HDD
3. Restore the disk image from the external HDD to the laptop's HDD.
I made it to step 3 without issue. So currently I have one unbootable Macbook Pro, an 85 GB image of a system partition on a USB HDD, and a perfectly bootable Intel Mac Mini from which I'm writing this post.
Problem: Disk Utility doesn't seem to be able to restore images when booted from the Installation CDs. On the 'Restore' tab there are two fields you must fill in, a 'source' field and a 'destination' field. The source field has a button where you can summon a very helpful file-picker, and it pulls up my disk image from my USB drive just fine. However, the destination field can only be filled in by clicking and dragging a drive from the left panel in Disk Utility.
However, it seems impossible to do this while booted from the Installation CDs. When I attempt to click and drag a disk from the left panel list, all I end up accomplishing is selecting multiple items from the list. To make a visual illustration:
Instead of this, like I get when I try it on my mac mini booted normally:
http://upload.pbase.com/silentplummet/image/72221384.jpg
...I get this, which is a photo of my macbook pro booted from the installation CDs:
http://upload.pbase.com/silentplummet/image/72221397.jpg
There doesn't seem to be any way to actually select a destination drive. If I had to hypothesize, I would guess that the GUI is crippled when you boot from CD and click+drag is deactivated. But that appears to make it impossible to restore images since the only way to select destination drives is by clicking and dragging.
Now I am a college student; I'm not really losing revenue or anything over this, but this is an awful oversight on Apple's part and I am stuck on what to do about it. There is no documentation that says "Restore functionality is crippled in Disk Utility when booting from installation CDs." Here are the steps I have tried for an alternate solution:
-Commandline diskutil. Unfortunately Apple has crippled it and there appears to be no imaging functionality whatsoever.
-Mount the image manually and cp the files back over. Unfortunately I can't make it preserve permissions. I passed the right options to cp but it just won't do what it's supposed to. I tried copying it anyway and using Disk Utility to repair the permissions, but it still wouldn't boot.
-Call Applecare. The support rep was kind and helpful but couldn't offer a solution. The higher-ups fed me some BS about not supporting third party applications, well, I hardly think Disk Utility constitutes a third party application.
My next step is to boot the MBP in target disk mode and use my mac mini to restore the image to the MBP HDD, but I have to buy a firewire cable for that and I don't really want to.
Seeking: acknowledgement that Disk Utility is broken and Apple *****, or otherwise immediate solutions to restore the image to my HDD that do not constitute monetary expenditures on my part.
Macbook Pro 15" 2.0 GHz Mac mini 1.5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Others have (in the Mac Pro forum) noticed this bug in Disk Utility on the Intel version install disks. Your easiest fix would be to reinstall OSX on you Macbook disk, boot it, mount the disk image from the USB drive, and use the Migration Assistant to copy over all your accounts and data files.

My mac mini wont boot from disk

My 2010 Unibody Mac Mini wont boot from disk, i need to open disk utility to repair my drive but it wont boot, any ideas?

it started yesterday, and nope, not changed anything apart from the apple update for S.L. a week or two ago, and its stuck at the spinning gear, this has never happened before

Wont boot from CD after hard drive installation.

I just installed a new hard drive in an iBook 700mhz. I expected the system folder missing message, as the hard drive was blank. However now it wont boot from CD when I hold down c on boot. Also when I hold down option, I get a circular arrow and an arrow pointing to the right but no real options. I reset the PRAM but that didn't help. Any one have an idea?

Over the years I've seen some optical drive failures that were actually being caused by the hard drive. The first thing I'd suspect given a new drive is that you didn't quite seat the I/O cable. The second is that the HD is defective. A couple times everything seemed fine and when the drive was placed on the bench and after formatting it there and reinstalling it the drive and computer were happy.

Wont boot from cd???

I have a slot-loading iMac that wont boot from a CD.
Does anyone know why? I have tried holding C and choosing the CD as a start-up disk but it doesnt work. The CD i am trying to start-up on is the Mac OS 9 CD.
Can anyone help??
Thanks Daniel.

Did you have any luck on this?
I am having the same quandry. I have a slot-loading 450MHZ imac which I purchased used with 10.2 installled on it. When I tried to upgrade to 10.3 using my black retail CD I own I was told I needed to upgrade the firmware. Then I discovered that Classic had been deleted from this computer, so had no way to boot in 9.2.2 to install the Firmware update....so I figured I would have to start from scratch from my white 9.0 retail CD and do the upgrades to 9.2.2, but it wouldn't boot from the white CD.
Then I followed instructions I found here and used my 10.3 disc to access Disk Utility and reformatted the HD with the OS 9 Drivers (losing the 10.2 install it had in the process), and reset the PRAM twice.
So now I just get a gray screen with the flashing Question Mark in a folder. I have tried an external CD drive to confirm it's not a problem with the optical drive and have booted from the OS 9 CD on another slot-loading imac to confirm it's not a problem with the Disk. I have a 9.0 CD and a 10.3 CD but nothing in between.
Still no luck...

MBP i7 17" wont boot from external CD/DVD

I have installed a second hardrive in my mbp using the optibay. Since then ive been trying to install windows on the second harddrive, but it wont boot from the windows cd. After some testing, it turns out it wont boot -any- cd from an external cd/dvd drive.
When i put in a bootable cd and boot with the option key, it does recognize the cd. When i select it, it starts spinning up, stops, and i get a grey screen with an flashing apple/failed sign.
I have already tried the following:
- Reset PRAM
- Use the superdrive i removed as USB cd/dvd drive
- Use a different USB cd/dvd drive
- Tried to boot off a bootable USB memory stick
- Installed rEFIt boot loader.
- Tried the (USB) superdrive on a previous model 15" MBP, and it boots without problems.
Im at a loss what else i can try. OS X installed perfectly when the superdrive was still connected to the internal SATA connector, but i dont feel like switching the whole thing back. Not to mention i wont be able to install windows on the secondary drive.
Maybe i could try an ExpressCard SATA controller? Or would that be a waste of time/money? Im also considering installing through target disk mode, but im afraid ill run into all kinds of trouble.
I hope you'll have some ideas!

I think can wrap this up.
The OS X Installer that came with my MBP did work on the external USB superdrive. So it appears the same thing applies for any USB connected device: only OSX installer will boot from it.
As for my initial booting needs: i have successfully installed Windows using bootcamp, though i used a workaround so i didn't have to boot from cd. For anyone who wanders around here and wants to know:
- Created a 10GB VMWare disk image for Windows
- Booted windows install disk inside VMWare
- Upon first reboot i shut down the virtual machine
- Connected the 10GB VMWare disk image to a Debian virtual machine
- Ripped mbr using: dd if=/dev/sdb bs=1 count=446 > mbr
- Copied it to my mac, and installed it to my drive using: fdisk -u -f mbr /dev/rdisk1
- Copied over the VMWare disk image to my Bootcamp Assistent created partition using: dd if=/dev/sdb1 | ssh root@mymac "dd of=/dev/disk1s3"
- Used WinClone to make an image of my Bootcamp partition, and immediately restored it. This fixes some windows issues for the new partition, and resizes it to fit your bootcam partition
- Reboot into windows and the install will continue!
Some tweaking of these commands are needed. If you don't know what you're doing: don't.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.

Satellite C50-A634 wont boot from USB or DVD

My new toshiba Satellite C50-A634 wont boot from usb, or dvd ,
i have downloaded win 8.1 and burn image to dvd but i still get an error message "no bootable device......please restart system" .
Can some one plz help?

Hi
Does Satellite C50-A634 supports internal CD/DVD drive or did you try to boot from external optical disk drive?
You have to know that _Satellite C50 & Satellite C50D models *without* a built-in ODD_ are not able to boot from an external ODD due to a technical limitation.
Details here:
[Limitation of external boot media for Satellite, Satellite Pro C50 & C50D devices|http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/TSB3B03JA0000R01.htm]
Only USB flash drives are supported as external boot devices!
It is necessary you can use a USB flash drive as recovery media on notebooks without a built-in ODD.

IMac wont boot from CD

I am selling my iMac so want to reformat the HD and do a fresh install of Leopard.
When I try to boot from the system CD I get the grey screen, I hear the CD Drive reading the disk, then the computer reboots. The same thing happens every time no matter how I try to boot from the CD. When I eject the CD, or boot from HDD, it loads the OS fine. It just wont boot from the CD.
I have tried:
Booting from CD by holding the C key during startup
Booting from CD using Startup Disk in System Preferences
Installing OS from the 'Install Mac OS X' application on the disc
Holding the option key during startup and selecting the CD drive
Resetting the NVRAM
Verifying the HD in disk utility
Verifying the CD in disk utility
Verifying and repairing HD disk permissions in disk utility
Running the install on my MacBook to check the CD (booted to the CD and started install process fine)
I have searched for previous discussions that reference this issue but could find none with this specific problem. The CD drive reads other media fine so I don't think it's a hardware issue.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Clean the disk?
Dirty lense?
The bottom of the disk must be free of scratches and especially human fingerprints which the oils can trasfer insdie the machine.
Use a bit of rubbing alcohol on a very soft clean cloth and polish ot a shine before using the optical drive.
Order a replacement disk from Apple, buy jewel cases that suspend your disk, the plasic/paper sleeves Apple provides aren't good.

G5 wont boot from installation disk?

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