IMac G5 Won't Boot and Optical Drive Won't Read Correctly

I have an iMac G5 17" 2.0GHz with a 300GB SATA drive installed about 6 months ago. Everything was fine until it recently ceased booting completely--it gets to the blue screen but the progress bar never even begins and there it sits. The fans come on fast and loud almost right away. The hard drive reads in the System Profiler, but doesn't show up at all in the Disk Utility; Disk Warrior 4 replaced the directory with ease and it appears on the desktop in TDM. It will not under any circumstances boot from a Mac OS X system disk, but will boot from the Disk Warrior and TechTool CDs. As a sidebar, the optical drive is making all sorts of loud unusual noises and reads only as a CD-ROM in the System Profiler (in the Disc Burning Tab nothing appears) even though it is a superdrive. 10.4.9 installed.

If you have AppleCare, suggest that you contact them and/or their Online Chat Support.
Also, see if your computer qualifies for one of the G5 iMac Repair Programs
**WARNING: DUE TO SECURITY REASONS, PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR COMPUTER'S SERIAL NUMBER ON THESE MESSAGE BOARDS.**

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Backing up separated Boot and User drives with Time Machine

I'll be making the jump to Leopard soon and was wondering how messed up Time Machine will be on my G5 which has a 74GB Raptor Boot drive that houses all applications and a 160GB drive (internal) that houses my User directory. Will TM automatically back up the Boot AND User drive or will I have to do anything special? Come to think of it, I wonder if I'm going to have to do anything different just to set it up the same way it is now, but in Leopard. I was planning on doing a complete fresh install....hmmm....

He he he... That will be a very good question. TM should backup ALL files on BOTH internal HARD DRIVES(grinding teeth here) and expect to take about a day's worth for the initial backup. I upgraded and TM just won't backup the users folder on the first hd that has all the users and apps, while the second houses all of the movies documents, music, photos. I decided to make TM shut down and leave it off. However, all of the leopard features work very very very very very very very very...very very well for my G5(Dual core 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 2x 250GB HD, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics card with a 30' display). Spaces works like we breathe, the general apps run at almost twice the speed (running Mathematica 6 while rendering video with Final Cut Pro 4 while surfing the internet). Ok probably not twice the speed, but it is certainly faster than Tiger. Also you have more room (up to 16 spaces). Just make sure that you have a spare internal hard drive to replace, just incase.

Upgrade of my PB with new hd and optical drive

Hi all
I have just upgraded my HD and optical drive on my powerbook to give it a bit more space and facilities.
This is what I have done.
1/
HD (80GB)>>becomes HD (250GB)
I used the WD2500BEVE to which I clone in an enclosure. Then I swap them.
This procedure worked well, and the PB booted straight away. Although I go a little folder with an apple as a first screen for a second or 2.
2/
I replaced the combo drive with the Panasonic UJ-85J
It seems to work straight out of the box, and I can burn from finder. I am still in the testing process, but so far I have been able to burn cd-R (max 24), and dvd-R(max x4 instead of 8). That is with finder.
This is what the System Profiler gives me.
Model: MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-85JS
Revision: FWR7
Serial Number:
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 1
Socket Type: Internal
Previously with my old drive, it read> Unit Number: 0
Also the serial number is blank for the optical drive.
The company I bought it from, checked it and told me that it was set-up as master (I guess this is from the firmware) as there isn't any jumper. We did check the System Profiler before together, and both drives (HD and optical drive) were reading Unit Number: 0
He didn't know much about Macs so he didn't really know what Unit Number was, but guessed that 0 meant master and 1 slave?
But here are my questions:
Another thing that has changed, is when I play a DVD movie, the image quality is rather poor, kind of pixilated, and when I enter the full screen mode, I now have a vertical black border (about 1.5 inch) on either side of the image. I have tried with VLC and it does the same.
Does any body knows what is happening?
Also is it possible to test the PB with its covers open ( i.e.with KB plate) without killing the PB?
Many thanks

Dam I don't believe it.
I have now played quite a lots of dvds for testing.
They all display in a different manner. Some play full screen with a good quality, some have a few mm to a cm of black line on the right and left side (the image not expending to the full screen capabilities, some have over 1 inch of these same black lines. The video showing the black lines usually shows poor quality images, contrary to the one going full screen that are as good as before. That might be due to the excess of information in a restricted area but I really don't know.
VLC shows exactly the same behaviors.
On DVD player I discovered the zoom-in facility (I can't remember this before), which helps getting rid off the line, but doesn't improve the quality of the image.
All my DVDs have been purchased in reputable shops, and to my memories, all these movies were playing in full screen mode before with a good quality.
As I said earlier, I have also played these with an external drive, but this didn't change a thing.
There is an other thing that I remember when I first tested the new HD in the enclosure. I did a fresh install of tiger first to see if the enclosure will cope with booting. I discover in the fresh install OSX that I had files in the trash, that were not even on my internal HD. I remember reading about HD with malicious viruses installed straight out of the factory. Could that be it?
Although I have read also about people experiencing similar phenomenon in iTune, when one day all worked fine and the next day, they ended up with the black lines that seem to be very similar to mine.
Please help, as I have tried all settings, and the players definitively do not behave has they used to unless it is a video without the lines.
I am now running ClamXav to check if anything is coming up. Thats going to take a while.
As Apple changed something?
Thanks

Booting from Optical Drive

Hey, I'm currently trying to upgrade my 13" Macbook Pro (Early 2011) with a new SSD. Right now it still has the stock HDD and optical drive. My question is if I replace the HDD with a SSD and then place the old HDD into the optical drive with the OWC data doubler, can I boot from the optical drive and have all my settings/apps as they were? If so, how then would I transfer everything over to the SSD once it was booted up?

If this is a problem with an OS X Installer Disc then you should take the computer to an Apple service center for repair or replacement.
If this is a problem with the Ubuntu disc, then we really cannot help. You would need to talk with their tech support. However, as far as I'm aware Ubuntu does not make a version that will work on an Intel Mac, as is, because it is not designed to boot or run on an EFI system such as is used by Intel Macs.

My optical drive will not read any music cds now or recognize a blank cd in the drive. it might read some data discs. what is wrong with it and how do i fix it?

My optical drive will not read any music cds or recognize a blank cd. it might read some data cds. what is wrong with it and how can i fix it?

The optics might be dirty. Try running a cleaning CD through it and see if that makes a difference.
If not, it will have to be replace.
Allan

Transferring internal and optical drives?

Hi all,
I have an older MacBook Pro 2,2 (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33GHz, 3 GB RAM) which has small internal drive and an optical drive that is starting to become buggy.
I have access to a more recent MacBook Pro 4,1 (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.6 GHz, 2 GB RAM) which has a much larger internal drive and a working optical drive.
What I want to know is, can I swap my current internal drive and optical drive for the other MacBook Pro's?
The execution of the two procedures does not bother me as I have some experience doing tech work on laptops. Just want to find out if this is a doable thing.
thanks in advance,
J

The hard drive maybe, the optical drive no due to DVD copy protection schemes requiring a tie in with original hardware.
You will have to erase the hard drive and reverse clone or reinstall OS X as the hardware drivers are incompatible in most cases.
Older computers usually have older SATA connections, so it doesn't make sense to switch hard drives between models of varying years.
Download the free MacTracker and it will tell you everything you need to know.

K9A2 Platinum-Won't boot from optical drives

My problem is that I can't get my computer to boot from either optical drive.Both drives work; I can read and write from either drive in windows xp. In the boot order menu neither drive is shown as a boot from device.The boot sequence menu shows all hdd and usb devices but no optical drives.Both drives are recognized in the bios.I wanted to dual boot vista x64 but can't because it won't boot from drive.Any ideas?
QuadCore AMD Phenom Black Edition 9850, 2500 MHz (12.5 x 200) MSI K9A2 Platinum (MS-7376) OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR10662G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM ATI Radeon X1800 GTO (256 MB) WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 (232 GB, IDE)WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B0 (465 GB, IDE) Microsoft Windows xp SP 3 Cooler Master 650W+3.3V@28A,+5V@30A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,[email protected], [email protected]

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IMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) - CPU and Optical drive fans rev up to 4000 rpm

Hello,
I just want to share my experience with my rather new Imac
I bought this Imac last April and I had the fans roaring after 2 weeks of light usage. I followed instructions like resetting the SMC, unplugging the imac and restarted.
However, I started installing other software like Paragon NTFS, VLC, Firefox and also Istat nano. This happened on a more regular basis and istat nano was showing up fairly normal temperatures - an average of 50° C and I had the CPU fan at 3800 and the Optical drive fan at 4200 rpms. According to apple support, at this temperature fans should be running at factory level or a bit more. Even when I stop all activity, the fans keep up and does not stop even after a couple of hours of inactivity on the imac. Apple support recommended that I reinstall macos on a new partition and run tests and during the tests, the only software I installed was istat nano and still got the fans going with the same result - required a shutdown to bring fans at normal levels and yet average temperatures were around 50 - 55 °C.
Eventually got apple to replace heat sensors - this did not help - still got the same unwanted result, fans reving up to 4000 rpm and not stopping and all that without going above 60°C. I was at the stage to demand a complete replacement but decided to give it another couple of weeks testing.
Last test, a complete reinstall of the OS and this time, without any other software apart from standard software delivered with the mac. Ran a few things like importing over 10,000 pictures with iphoto and some other stuff to increase activity - overall CPU usage was at 5% idle for a good few hours and could not reproduce the problem (istat nano was not installed, so I could not monitor temperature). I started installing Paragon NTFS for mac and ran the same scenarios and still no fans going crazy - putting my hands over the top of the imac, can feel a slight breeze...).
Installed other software such as VLC and Firefox 5.0 but still no istat nano and same high activity, import high volumes in iphoto and also did an empty secure thrash to increase load. CPU usage was to 95 again and still fans are behaving properly.
One thing that comes to my mind with istat nano is that, when the fans get going, the ambient value change to -140 - I do not want to rush into any conclusion but is it possible that there is some interference between istat nano and those new sensors that have come in with Imac mid 2010 (from reading mac forums, Apple has added a new ambient sensor..). Because all the time I have been reinstalling the OS, I have always installed istat nano to monitor temperature and fan speed and I always got this issue. But since yesterday, I have installed clean OS, tested, added some 3rd party software but still no istat nano and I canot reproduce the issue. I have been using the same scenario during all this testing - very high import with iphoto, viewing a film, empty secure thrash, enough to use up to 95% CPU.
Has anyone experienced this? I hope this is the cause of my problem because this mac is making my life easier at home compared to previous PC and also, I want to know that my hardware is not at fault...
I will keep you posted if I get the issue again - could be tempted to install istat nano and run the tests to see if the fans will rev up after this but not sure I want to go through another 4 days of just doing this...
regards
Philip

Hey nycbigapple2,
I'd run through the recommended troubleshooting steps for when your iMac runs slowly here:
OS X Mavericks: If your Mac runs slowly
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13895
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
Take care,
Delgadoh

New E540 won't boot from optical drive

Hello!
I just bought a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E540 and I have no interest in Windows 8 nor the HDD the laptop came with. I replaced the original HDD with a Samsung 250 gb SSD and now I want to install it with a fresh Windows 7 which I already had laying around.
My issue is that I can't get the DVD-reader to boot into the disc. I get to a Boot Menu where I can choose between a few alternatives, one being the CD0. When I select it and hit Enter the screen goes black for a few seconds and then returns me back to the Boot Menu. I have tried this with 2 different Windows 7 discs, which I have also tested in my desktop pc to ensure they work correctly. The same thing also happens when I choose "Windows Boot Manager" or the empty new SSD.
I tried setting the optical drive to the first boot order in the BIOS but with no result.
What am I doing wrong? halp.

Is the Leopard disk you're trying to boot from a full retail install disk or a gray install disk? If it's a gray install disk from another Mac that would cause the problems that you're describing. It has to be for the exact same model as yours to have the correct drivers on it. A full retail install disk has the drivers for every Mac on it.

Windows 7 won't boot without optical drive (SSD, Dual HD)

I recently purchased an SSD and an optical drive HD caddy so I could use two HDs on my macbook pro. I installed the SSD in the normal HD slot in order to install Windows via optical drive. When I move my SSD over to the optical drive slot, Windows hangs on a black screen before the Windows logo and never boots. I tried moving the SSD back to the main HD slot but without the optical drive installed, the same symptoms occur - no boot. This leads me to believe that Windows will not boot without the optical drive (which was present during installation).
Perhaps this is a problem with primary/slave drive settings? I learned today that the intel chipsets in macbooks do not have BIOS for Windows and do not allow you to access the EFI. Not sure if that would help anyways.
Has anyone experienced this and/or have a solution?

I am suffering the same issue. Macbook pro 15 inch late 2009 with 8gig ram. I have a 256gb ssd newly installed, a dead superdrive (thanks a bunch for the drop in build quality without the drop in price apple) and an optibay caddy which i intend on having my 500gb 7200rpm previous HDD installed in. I had the normal annoying issues trying to get bootcamp working with an external optical drive. I then had the bright idea of taking my external optical drive case apart and discovered its a sata drive with a sata to usb convertor attached. Got bootcamp/win7 installed fine using the superdrives sata connector with the optical drive (essentially having a temporary internal optical drive again).
OSX and windows function fine as long as the optical drive stays connected. There does not need to be a disc in the drive, i thought windows might be getting boot info from the win disc. Osx boots fine if its just the ssd. Windows hangs with a white screen right at the beginning. Also doesnt boot using boot menu via alt key. Nor using the reEFIt boot menu (installed later now deleted).
Disk utility says it cannot repair the windows partition and says to back up the data and reformat the drive. This also happens if i use a normal sata drive. I am attempting a few more ideas but at this rate i will be virtual machining windows instead. Far from ideal but seeing as my windows pc is now officially no more and there are two pc only programs i need to use for university i dont have much choice i NEED windows. Anyone got a bright idea that may help?

Install disk won't boot -- strange optical drive error

Hi all,
I have a very strange problem with my install disk. Some background:
-I have two separate install disks, one burned several months ago and one burned fresh today. Both are dual-arch netinstalls.
-The old disk worked perfectly at least twice on my old machine.
-Both disks behave identically as far as I can tell. I only made a new one because I thought the old one may have been scratched when it didn't work.
So, I just finished a new rig today, and as I planned a dualboot for it, I installed Windows first (because we all know how nice the Windows installer is to pre-existing OSes). That ran fine: I'm making this post from that installation. One of the first things I did after the install finished was put in a music CD, which also worked fine. When I tried to install Arch, though, I get a mysterious I/O buffer error (which, unfortunately, I can't paste because I have no way to extract a log or copy the output). It says something about an unhandled sense code. I've googled all over and the unanimous consensus is a borked optical drive, but I know that isn't the case because it has operated normally for other data disks (Windows install) and for the music CD I've had in there for about half an hour. My next guess would be a borked CD, but both function normally on other machines.
Any ideas?

Try a new iso for your new machine, perhaps your machine has hardware not covered by a 14 month old kernel.
http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/

How do i install windows 8 on my 2012 imac that doesn't have an optical drive?

i know i could just buy an external optical drive, but i don't really want to at this point. if i have to i will.
i read that i can use another computer that does have an optical drive and move the windows 8 information to a thumbdrive, then use the thumbdrive to install the OS to my imac. i couldn't find any decient tutorials to do this, so i decided to give this a shot. any help would be greatly apprechiated!
P.S. does windows 8 even run well on a mac? i just want to play FEZ lol
again, thanks a lot,
-darren

Boot Camp allows you to install Windows on the hard drive of a Mac. It's more difficult and you must be very careful with the Windows installation. If you do something wrong, you may lose Mac OS X.
Some Macs support Windows 8 > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US If your computer is supported, you can install Windows 8.
You can install Windows 8 from a DVD or a USB drive. If you want to install Windows 8 from a USB drive, you have to buy Windows 8 in the Microsoft Store, which will allow you to download Windows 8 in a ISO file, that you will be able to burn to a USB drive using Boot Camp Assistant (it's in /Applications/Utilities).
Apple has got official steps to install Windows on your iMac > http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/boot_camp_install-setup_10.8.pdf

How can a get my iMAC to recognize a newly installed optical drive?

I recently ordered a new Optical drive for my iMAC 12,1 to replace a damaged one. I followed the instructions online to replace the drive with no issues. I restarted the iMAC and it will not recognize the new optical drive. The optical drive won't accept any disks either. The optical drive is
Model GA11N
Manufacturer: HL
Condition: Brand New never used, without original manufacturer packaging
SATA interface, Slot-in loading, 12.7mm in height, without faceplate, no eject button. 1 Year Warranty
with Apple Logo, Special for Apple iMac Intel 20" EMC 2266 A1224 21.5" 2308 27" 2390 2309 2374 Mac Mini Mid 2010
Write Speed: DVD-RAM :5X DVD+R :8X DVD+R DL :4X DVD-R DL :4X DVD+RW :8X DVD-R :8X DVD-RW :6X CD-R :24X CD-RW :24X Read Speed: DVD-ROM/DL: 6X CD-R:24X CD-RW: 24X CD-ROM: 24X
How can a get the iMAC to recognize this new optical drive?

Here are some sources for Mac compatible optical drives that wiil work with your 2011 iMac.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/VLU2SD24XS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3F82SD24S/
http://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-External-Super-Drive-Apple--MacBook/dp/B007FUDKB4 /ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1392328000&sr=1-1&keywords=mac+compatible+ dvd+drive
http://www.amazon.com/External-Super-Drive-Apple-MacBook/dp/B009XON646/ref=sr_1_ 3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1392328066&sr=1-3&keywords=mac+compatible+dvd+drive
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-External-GP40NB40/dp/B009DS6OFU/re f=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1392328138&sr=1-8&keywords=mac+compatible+dvd +drive

2012 iMac 27" fails to boot AND wake from sleep

Hi all,
My 2012 iMac has recently started giving my trouble when booting and waking from sleep.
When booting - A normal power up results in the apple logo screen being stuck, then I have to hold down the power button for a few seconds until power off, then i power it back up and the computer boots up normally. NOTE: only at the second time does the computer succeed in getting past the apple logo screen to the sign in screen.
Waking from Sleep - When ever the mac goes to sleep he doesn’t seem to be able to wake up. Usually stuck on a black screen with just the spinning wheel shown. At times i waited more then an hour to see if he can get passed the black screen but in vain.
Other then that the mac works fine.
Both issues started roughly two weeks ago and roughly at the same time.
My mac is mostly used for work, I'm familiar with computers so I am trying to be extra careful with installing weird applications but you could never know..
SPEC:
Late 2012 iMac 27'' - 3.4 Ghz i7.
16GB RAM.
1TB Fusion drive.
2GB NVIDIA GTX 680MX
Wired keyboard and a Magic mouse.
Mountain Lion 10.8.5 (Updated and backed up on a regular basis)
Things I've tried:
Boot to Recovery and Repair Disk/Permissions.
Safe Boot.
SMC reset.
PRAM reset.
* The first two produced a single case of a normal start up, but after a shut down the problem remains.
Any ideas/thoughts/help would be much appriciated,
Thanks in advance,
Idan.

Bump.

Using osx snow leopard with boot camp, optical drive keeps ejecting windows 7 disc

Upgraded my late 2008 macbook pro from leopard to snow leopard. Added the max 4GB of RAM and replaced the working 250GB hard drive with a new 1TB hard drive. Rebooted with time machine from external hard drive. Now tried setting up Bootcamp to add a Windows 7 partition, but the optical drive keeps ejecting the Windows 7 disc after it spins for a few moments. The optical drive will read other discs, just not the Windows 7 disc. How do I fix this problem?

you need to install the new bootcamp drivers from windows. boot into windows, insert the snow leopard DVD, open it and follow the instructions.

IMac G5 Won't Boot and Optical Drive Won't Read Correctly

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