I an imac G3 (my first)but hard drive is blank please help:(

I bought an old imac from a guy at work but no hd the only one i have is compatible but blank is there any way to get an os iso via my pc to make a disk to install on the mac? It's my first mac and i can't dump a lot of money on it even an older os would do to start learning a little about using mac any help or direction would be extremely appreciated. thank you.

Hi, samohtaz -
That model iMac originally came with a model-specific version of OS 8.6.
Your choices for Apple OS's are to obtain -
• An original Software Install CD for that specific model iMac.
• Any retail OS 9 Install CD. The retail OS 9 Install CDs have a white label with a large gold 9 on them. Once that OS has been installed, you can use download updaters to bring it up to OS 9.2.2, if desired.
• Any retail version of OSX. Note - before installing OSX or even attempting to boot that model to OSX, be sure the firmware for it has been updated in accordance with this Apple KBase article -
Article #86117 - Firmware Updates
Also, recent versions of OSX come on DVD disks rather than CDs. Unless the optical drive in your iMac has been replaced, you would not be able to use the DVD disk set - the current version can be exchanged for a set of CDs.

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External Hard Drive not readable - please help!

Dear All
I use an intel imac, running snow leopard, backed up to a 2TB Time Capsule.
In order to create more space on my imac, I decided to use a seagate hard drive (that has faithfully served me for backups over a couple of years, pre time capsule) for storing my ever expanding home movie selection.
To avoid problems (and to make a clean start with this disk), I deleted everything on the drive via disk utility. I then ran a single partition on the drive using the settings of GUID partition with Mac OS Extended Journaled (i.e. so I selected partition so there is only 1 volume) . Everything went smoothly. I then copied my film collection to my hard drive. I then tested it - the films were on there and I could play them.
Now when I reboot, I get the message "the disk you inserted was not readable by the computer. Initialize / ignore / eject"?
What have I done wrong? Have I erased / formatted my backup drive incorrectly? How can I fix this?
I have another backup drive (that I keep offsite) that still is readable by the computer, so I do not think it is a hard ware problem.
I'm not in diaster zone yet. My movies are still on the imac, on time machine and backed up on the offiste external drive. However, in the need to create more space, I just need to be able to store files on external drives and then use them!!
Any help much appreciated
cheers
Paul

Most likely the drive is partitioned in NTFS format. Macs can read that format, but not if the disk is corrupt. You should do two things. First, immediately make a backup of the data on that disk. Obviously you'll need a PC to do this. Then, also using the PC, run the Windows chkdsk program to repair the disk. If it can be repaired, it should then be readable on your Mac.

160GB iPod Classic Hard Drive Problem? please help!

hi,
I've been trying for weeks to figure out what is wrong with my 160gb classic. it is 14 months old, so just out of warranty. I recently updated to iTunes 10.1.2, after not having synced my iPod for a few months. a few weeks later i went to plug in my ipod and it wasn't recognized by iTunes. i got a bit worried, so i kept trying to unplug it and plug it back in. the one time it popped up, iTunes said it needed to be restored, but the restore failed and it was stuck in disk mode when I unplugged it. I replugged it in and it would only show up in Disk Utility. after tonnes of searching, i tried to do an erase from there, which only made things worse, as the erase constantly failed. Finally i tried to plug my ipod into my old PC running Windows XP. after a few tries iTunes recognized it. the first few restores failed, but after about 5 one completed and i could finally access the menus on my iPod again. However, my ipod still won't show up on iTunes on either of these computers. I did a diagnostic test (SMART or whatever) and the number of the ones that aren't supposed to be high are really high. it this a hard drive issue? is there anything i can do?
another thing i ended up doing is plugging my dad's 3G nano into my mac. iTunes wouldn't recognize it either, which worried me. Disk Utility would see it though, so i just ejected it as to not break it any more.
I really want ONE of these ipod's to work! please help!

Look at the following support article and work your way through the steps
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1369

Hard drive detection problem - PLEASE HELP!!!!

I'm about at my wits end with this problem. One of my drives crashed over the weekend, and since then the replacement drive never gets detected. When I have the second drive installed, my computer never gets past the "Verifying DMI Pool Data", then says disk boot failure. When I take out the second drive, my computer boots fine. I've tried different jumper settings, thinking maybe i looked at the diagram backwards, disconnecting my DVD drive and putting the hard disk on the secondary IDE, and installing the new drive as the master and installing Windows on it, with the old drive as the slave. Nothing has worked. As soon as I connect a second hard drive, I get a disk boot failure. I've checked the boot priority a hundred times, and it's correct. In case it was a power supply problem, I removed everything except the two hard drives and some RAM, and that didn't fix anything. I'm lost as to where to go from here. My computer works fine without the second drive, but I need the second drive for gaming.
I'm now thinking it may be the motherboard, because a couple things have happened over the last month. First, all of a sudden I got a CMOS checksum error, then about a week and a half ago the onboard NIC died. And when I installed the updated drivers and flashed the BIOS, on restart I received an error message saying something was wrong with the overclocking settings and had been reset to the default values. The problem with that is I never overclock anything.
I'm not even sure the old drive actually crashed anymore. I heard clicking coming from the computer, and when I all of a sudden lost access to the drive, I assumed it crashed. But now that I am unable to get the brand new drive to work, I'm thinking I need to get a new motherboard. I'm trying to avoid that as long as I can though because this one is only 5 months old.
Would a possible solution be to just leave the master on IDE, and buy a SATA drive to use as a second disk? Or does mixing IDE and SATA cause issues?
Thanks for any help anybody may be able to offer.
Anyway, here are my system specs:
K8N Neo4 motherboard
Athlon64 3200+
2.5 GB RAM - 3x 512 and 1x 1GB stick
Boot disk - Western Digital 120GB ATA 100 IDE
Old Slave - Seagate 60GB ATA 100 IDE
New Slave - Western Digital 120GB ATA 100 IDE
NIC - Linksys 10/100
DVD-RW - Mad Dog Multimedia
DVD-ROM - Sony
Graphics - GeForce 7800GTX
Sound - Mad Dog Entertainer 7.1
Power Supply - 420W

Quote
putting the hard disk on the secondary IDE, and installing the new drive as the master and installing Windows on it, with the old drive as the slave.
Does the 2nd HD work then, were you able to boot up and install Windows?
Does BIOS detect it?
Have you tried a new IDE cable?
Make sure that all the pins are properly in and not loose in the molex connector to the HD.
Have you tried using the new drive alone on IDE-1 or 2?
Have you tried clearing CMOS? remove P/S AC cord, press case power button a few times to drain remaining power then clearing CMOS buy way of the jumper.
Quote
I'm trying to avoid that as long as I can though because this one is only 5 months old
Did you buy this MB new?
If so you could RMA it.

My mac isn't detecting my external hard drive (LACIE). Please help!

I've got all my important file in it I urgently need and I cannot open my Lacie external hard drive on my Macbook pro. I tried putting it on to a Window's laptop and it works but not on the mac.
How can I check if there's a problem with the mac or my external hard drive? How would I fix it..

Thanks for answerin my Q, sorry if I don't answer all your Q, im not really a computer expert
The hard drive does not have an extra power suply so I guess it's bus powered. Also Im not sure if the drive is formatted in MAC OS. I've been using this same external hard drive for the last 2 month and I dont know if this could be the problem but 2 days ago my friend plugged this hard drive in to his 24inche imac to put a file in. I went home and when I try to put the hard drive in to my macbook pro it didn't detect anything. It still works on windows though.

Think hard drive is dying- please help!

Started the G5 today and heard clicking/ cludding sounds. I believe they came from the top of the tower, which is where the hard drives are (I have an extra one for video storage). The OS would not start up but instead I got a “?” flashing on and off and I believe it was inside a small folder. I had been noticing sounds that sound like shifting to me from a hard drive (impossible to tell which one) for a while now. Last time I heard sounds like this was on my PC and the drive was dying.
Told all this to the AppleCare rep who went through some stuff then concluded that it was a software issue and I should try removing one of the 2 programs she was unfamiliar with: Little Snitch and the software for my Contour Shuttle (like another mouse for video work). I told her this was unlikely as these were very common aps and everything had been fine for quite a while. She said I was welcome to take the G5 to a service center where they could test if it was in fact a hardware issue.
What I’m wondering is 1- does this sound like a hardware issue & 2- is there a way to backup the whole drive?
I may have another SATA drive I could use to back it up and have a TrayDock external FW800 case that allows you to use internal SATA drives. I’ve taken drives from the TrayDock and used them on the G5s other internal slot w/o issue. So it seems to me all I would need to do is get all the info on to the backup, and set the jumper setting correctly. Am I right? If so, how do I get all the info onto the backup and how would the jumper need to be set when it becomes the main Macintosh HD?

I read a report Google did on hard drive failures. It is available in pdf format and quite interesting.
I use Applejack religiously along with Disk Warrior 4 and Carbon Copy Cloner 3. I also use Intech Speedtools to handle bad blocks, defrag, zonebench/quickbench. And I regularly zero my drive before using and again on yearly basis or as needed.
I am not sure why having 4.5 GB RAM would be a factor unless running Memtest or Rember or the Apple Hardware TEst in Extended/Loop Mode.
The best way to "defrag" is quite simple, old-fashioned. It is called *backup and restore* with an erase/zero drive in the middle (dump simultaneously to two tape sets would be very old school!).
DW4 - hold down option and the Rebuild button changes and lets you do a deeper 'scavenger" run which is helpful. I would run the test files first too, but it always opens to the directory rebuild.
When dealing with a problem drive, I start by throwing away stuff I don't need, have backed up, and can replace. From newest to older. Peeling an onion to unravel any cross-linked files in the process.
If it is a boot drive and early on, consider using Single User Mode and fsck along with Applejack. You want to delete all the cache and swap files along with any temp files or logs. It works. And restart into Safe Mode.
SMART is not very smart and does not "predict" failures. That was just one of the conclusions of the Google study where they use thousands of drives and need to know about reliability.

ITunes 6 and External Hard Drive issue. Please Help!!

Hi Gang!
I'm having problems when using iTunes 6 to work with my external HD as my iTunes Music library vault.
Under iTunes Advanced section I have set my Preference to change my music library from my iMac G5 to my external HD. Everything works fine, but everytime I restart my computer, iTunes automaticaly sets the Preferences back to the Music Library folder in the iMac G5 instead of the the external HD. I never had this problem before with other versions of iTunes.
Am I missing something or is there an extra step I should take to having iTunes accept the external HD as my permanent iTunes Music Library holder?
Thanks for any input.
Alex

Hi TP2GO!!!
Thanks for your reply!! You mention that this problem is being caused due to the fact that my external HD is not available at start up. But the driver is always available, since it is always hooked up to my iMac at all times. I've noticed, though, that iTunes starts up at login and maybe system is running it before it runs my external HD (if I follow your logic), possibly causing iTunes to set the iTunes library back to default since it cannot find the external driver where the new library should rest. So, my new question is: how do I disable iTunes from running at start up to try and see if this is what's causing my problem?
Thanks very much indeed for your input!!!!
Alex

Hard Drive/Space Problem, please help!

My laptop has been acting strangely since the start of this year. I've had it for five years now & it started popping up "Start up disk is full" message. But I really don't keep a lot of stuff, few pictures, one movie, few family videos & old essays/powerpoints.
But anyways I started cleaning up stuff, but the Available data went from 1.62 GB to 1.4 GB & then slightly higher & now stopped 1.33 GB.
Is this a virus? What should I do?
Any suggestions would help so much. Thank you in advance.

Do yourself a huge favour. Get an external drive and make a back up. Do this immediately because you are in danger of losing everything on your laptop. Your hard drive is already in distress.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553

Hard drive installation problem, please help

I installed a new hard drive and get a prompt:
"No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"
I then insert the Mac OS install disk 1 and press a key and nothing happens -- it stays at the above prompt. What do I need to do?

Try holding the "c" key while booting with the Mac OSX disc already in... I believe that's the key to boot from CD. Maybe it's changed but worth a try.

Itunes to external hard drive?? PLEASE Help.

Hi Guys.
I like my iTunes library to be clean and neat. I have about 2,800 MP3's and it took me over a week to "edit" all of them and "clean them up" (properly spelled Artist, Genre, Album title, etc).
Now that everything is clean and neat, is there anyway I can copy my iTunes on to my external hard drive?
Should my computer crash, or I get a new one (this thing is OLD), I don't want to have to re-organize my entire iTunes library.
Any help/info is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Vic

StubChain - Thats interesting. Will try that. Thank you.
StarDeb - Thanks again. Sorry to sound illiterate here, but how do i "drag" the iTunes folder to the EHD?
I know how to drag things, but I'd have to minimize the C Drive window, and then open the G drive (EHD) and not sure how to DRAG when i has to relase the mouse to open and close folders.
Assume Copy and paste would work??
what about what your article said yesterday about clicking on "keep itunes organized". still need to do that?
Guys, thanks for the help, and dealing with me. I'm iTunes illiterate.
I still don't know how to get a downloaded song from "My Documents" (where they DL to) over to iTunes. lol
one struggle at a time.
*I've also tried to reward with the "helpful" tabs to you both, and an error happened. Will try again...promise...I'll just hit SOLVED.*

How do I find how large my Hard Drive is? Please help!

Recently been getting messages saying that my startup disk is full. And I'm thinking about getting a Time Capsule. But the thing is, I can't find out how big my hard drive is. I clicked the apple, then About this mac, and I could only find "Memory", which was only 1 GB. I know that can't be it, because my iTunes is over 90 GB. But I can't find the hard drive. Either I'm blind, or it's not there.
Please help
Thanks

Click more info in the about this mac pop up. Then under Serial-ATA. This will give you the size.
You can also click on your drive in finder and choose Get Info. This will also let you see the size.

Hard drive recommendation? Please help.

I want to replace the 100 GB factory hard drive in my dv9005us Notebook PC. Will any of the following hard drives work?
Western Digital - Scorpio 320GB Internal SATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD3200KTRTL | SKU: 8909586
SATA interface; 16MB cache; 7200 rpm; data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps
Western Digital - 320GB Internal Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD3200BEVT | SKU: 8679762
Serial ATA interface; WhisperDrive technology; ShockGuard technology; data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps; 8MB buffer
Western Digital - Scorpio Blue 500GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: WD5000BEVTRTL | SKU: 9172799
Serial ATA interface; 5400 rpm; 3 Gbps data transfer rate
A few days ago, I purchased a
Seagate - Momentus 500GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Laptops Model: ST905003N3A1AS-RK | SKU: 9326428
Serial ATA interface; quiet operation; 3 Gbps; 16MB buffer
from Best Buy, but I am going to return it because there have been firmware problems with some Seagate drives and the box it came in says that it contains a 5 year warranty but the only thing inside was the drive.
Can I use a 7200 rpm 16MB buffer drive in my computer?
Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

The dv9005us does not have the hard drive protection system. I believe that is confined to the HP/Compaq Business Models. So no worries there.

I can't format my external hard drive, some one please help me.

i can't format my external hard drive, when i am trying using disk utility its some times not showing the erase option. when its shows erase option its saying earase failed can not unmount the disk.

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

New Hard drive not working - please help!!!

This is an original thread that I'd started:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2066043&tstart=0
Since that, I tried the following this morning.
I took out the old 100GB drive and fitted the new 500GB (blank) drive. My plan was to fresh install OSX, install Carbon Copy Cloner and then clone the old drive by plugging it in with a reading device I have. What actually happened was the following:
I put in my Mac OSX install disc 1. I opened disc utility from the top toolbar. In disc utility the new drive showed up and I formatted (erase option) it to mac OS Extended (journalled). I then began a fresh install of OSX. As it started the macbook told me I was '+running on battery power+' and '+was I sure?+'. With full battery I said yes and continued. All was going well and it prompted for the second install disc. It got some way through that and then got stuck at 38% installing garage band loops. The new internal drive was also making a repetitive noise - not loud or anything but certainly sounded like it was searching for something. As the whole thing was stuck and nothing was working I held down the power button.
I tried again with the first disc but it wont even do anything anymore! I took out the new drive and put in the old one. Booted up. Connected the new drive to the reader with the idea of re-formatting it via disc utility.
But now the brand new drive is not readable and is making the a few funny repetitive noises.
Please help me someone - I'm very worried about this new drive now!!! Is is broken or corrupted or something???
Your help is very much appreciated
Adam

Vegas Superstar wrote:
My plan was to fresh install OSX, install Carbon Copy Cloner and then clone the old drive by plugging it in with a reading device I have.
Hi VS,
What "reading device" are you using?
As it started the macbook told me I was '+running on battery power+' and '+was I sure?+'. With full battery I said yes and continued.
It is best to have the power adapter connected when running a long process like this which cannot be interrupted.
The new internal drive was also making a repetitive noise - not loud or anything but certainly sounded like it was searching for something. As the whole thing was stuck and nothing was working I held down the power button.
How long was it "stuck?"
I tried again with the first disc but it wont even do anything anymore! I took out the new drive and put in the old one. Booted up. Connected the new drive to the reader with the idea of re-formatting it via disc utility.
But now the brand new drive is not readable and is making the a few funny repetitive noises.
Please help me someone - I'm very worried about this new drive now!!! Is is broken or corrupted or something???
It sounds like there is something amiss with the new HD. If you have access to a different external enclosure, (even on a PC, just to see if the HD will function), you could try erasing/formatting it again. If not, I think it's time to contact the vendor about a return.

Hard Drive Crash! Please help

I was surfing the internet when my itunes froze up, and then safari froze up. So I just rebooted and I got the flashing folder icon with the ? in the middle of it. I popped in the install CD and help down "c". I went to disk utility where the hard drive would not show up on the left. I even went to try to reinstall MAC OSX and the hard drive would not show up. Finally I ran the hardware test and came up with this error: 4MOT/1/40000002:Left_Upper - Front
I researched this and found that it is the fan not operating correctly. I dont know how this could involve the harddrive. But shouldnt I get a hard drive error on the hardware test if indeed the harddrive crashed? The harddrive also makes a popping sound every now and then.
What is teh best way to go about getting my files? or am I doomed?
About installing a new hard drive, what is a brand? and is it hard to replace?

If you didn't make a back-up of your purchases to restore from (as you are advised to do) then I'm sorry to say that the policy on lost purchases is that you have to pay to download them again:
"Once a Product is purchased and you receive the Product, it is your responsibility not to lose, destroy, or damage the Product, and Apple shall be without liability to you in the event of any loss, destruction, or damage." iTunes Store: Purchased content can be downloaded only once
You could try contacting the iTunes Music Store Customer Service and you might be able to persuade them to sanction a second free download. There have been occasional reports in the iTunes forum of this happening, however just be aware that they are not under any obligation to do so. If you click on this link you'll be able to email your query: iTMS Customer Service
If you have an iPod that still has the purchases on it the transfer of purchased content from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
You might also want to check out these pages for future reference:
How to back up your media in iTunes
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

I an imac G3 (my first)but hard drive is blank please help:(

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