IMac G5 won't boot from an external Seagate Freeagent FireWire drive

Hi guys,
So, the internal drive on my sister's iMac G5 finally died a few days ago. On my advice, she stopped in to Best Buy and bought a Seagate Freeagent Xtreme 1tb external drive (with FireWire). I had her connect the Seagate to her MacBook (in Windows Boot Camp mode) and use the Seagate Manager to disable the drive's power-saving mode. I then talked her through using her OS X Leopard DVD to (re)partition the Seagate (using the Apple Partition Map scheme) and format it as Mac OS Extended Journaled, and Leopard installed just fine on the external drive (from the G5, via USB).
However, now when she tried to boot from the external over FireWire (by holding down "Option" on power-on), it plays dead (no lights), and doesn't show as a viable boot device. When plugged into the laptop (also over firewire) it shows up just fine on the desktop. We would use USB to boot, but her G5 doesn't support booting over USB.
What am I missing here? We've been working on this for three days, and have gotten so freakin' close to having her iMac up and running again, but the cursed Seagate drive simply refuses to "kick in" at bootup and work on the G5!
Any ideas would be awesome,
Huxley

Honestly, that's exactly what I would do if I had hands-on access to the iMac, but such a swap is a bit beyond my sister's skill-set.
We never did figure out what the issue was, so I had my sister return the drive and order one from MacSales.com (aka Other World Computing) - if anyone will have a Mac-friendly drive, it's those folks!
Huxley

Similar Messages

  • IMac G5 won't boot from CD drive, Please Help

    My iMac G5 won't boot from the CD drive. There is no operating system on the hard drive so I want to install a fresh copy of Leopard. I have tried a couple different methods, but I keep getting the same end result. The first method I tried was booting from the CD drive by holding the C key during start up. The Leopard disc was automatically ejected after about 20-30 seconds. The second method I tried was booting the iMac to the "question mark file screen," which is when I inserted the Leopard disc. Usually on other Mac computers, this is when the computer will show the Apple logo and prompt you with the installation process. Not this iMac, it just ejects the disc shortly after I insert it. I'm not sure if it's the CD drive that is having the issue, the hard drive, or something else.
    If you have any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated!
    Thank you,
    Chris

    Where did you get the CD from?
    If it is from another Mac, it is probably specific to the hardware in that Mac and is not capable of boot your iMac.
    Allan

  • Imac g5 won't boot from any Cd/DVD

    Hey,
    New member here.
    I have an Imac 20" 1.8 Ghz PowerPC G5, running Mac OS X 10.4.9.
    My problem is my computer won't boot from from any DVD or Cd, not the original system disc (10.3.5), not from a newer Imac system disc (10.4.7), not from a Disc Warrior 3.03 disc.
    What I get from the Disc Warrior disc is a gray screen with white letters backed in black, saying
    "panic (cpu 0 caller 0xooze49do): unable to find driver for this platform: "powermac8,1""
    Plus other stuff written underneath it, looking like a log of how far it went.
    When I try to boot from the original 10.3.5 DVD, it does boot up but doesn't work after that - it gets to the language to choose and stops.
    When I try to boot from the 10.4.7 DVD, I get the gray screen, same results as the Disc Warrior cd.
    I even copied my system folder (10.4.9) onto a firwire drive and start from that, but I get the gray screen again.
    I zapped the pram, and reset the Open Firmware - still no dice.
    Can anybody shed some light on this?!?
    Many thanks!
    Rufmanj

    To Apple Discussions.
    Please check out the following thread which the original posted had the same error you had.
    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4459207#4459207
    You may find some helpful troubleshooting solutions in the above thread.
    Make absolutly sure you are using the "DVDs" that originally came with the computer.
    Also, see Knowledge Base Article; http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106805 Mac OS X: "Broken folder" icon, prohibitory sign, or kernel panic when computer starts

  • Macbook Pro 15" won't boot from ANYTHING :( Can't mount internal drive

    Hi there,
    I'm new to these forums so please bear with me if I make a faux pas.
    A few days ago while watching a movie on my MBP Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 the beach ball of death appeared and the computer became unresponsive. I restarted to the flashing folder with a question mark.
    Tried to boot from the install disk - No joy : Occasionally gets to the language selection screen (after a good 5-8 minute wait) and then instantly and completely freezes. Cursor won't move, caps lock light is unresponsive etc..
    Tried to boot from Diskwarrior - Similar to the above. Long wait, boots to the Diskwarrior 'setting up' screen, unresponsive cursor - despite, Diskwarrior seemingly going through the motions (status in text changes, menu bar appears) and then it reports an unexpected error with code 60, 2105 and completely freezes.
    Can't boot from a USB flash drive with a clean version of OS X made from my install disk.
    Disk won't mount when in target disk mode. However the DVD drive mounts it's contents onto the host machine when it target mode.
    I removed the drive last night and placed it in an external enclosure and OS X reports "The disk you've inserted is not recognised et.. "Initialise" "Ignore" "Eject". The drive appears in Disk Utility but all options are greyed out, SMART status says 'not supported' and it's capacity is shown as 0 bytes. The drive registers in the Hardware pane of Diskwarrior but no-where else.
    I'm fine with the fact that the drive has failed but could these problems indicate something more serious? I'm concerned that the machine won't boot from any device or media. Is this a symptom of a failed hard drive or could this be a logic board issue?
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
    Thanks all and Happy new Year.
    XOXO

    You might try a PRAM reset and see if this does any good.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US
    It sounds like the hard drive itself is toast based on how it looks in an enclosure. So you won't be able to boot from it. Possibly after a PRAM reset you could option boot to a disc or to your external drive.
    I had the experience of a failed hard drive totally messing up my PowerMacG4, and it took some doing to get it going again. I finally got it going again, and it has been working ever since without issue.
    The MBP is a different machine, but having experienced first hand what a dying hard drive could do, I think it's well worth doing any resets you can.
    If no joy, make an appointment at the genius bar and ask them if they can run a hardware test from their store feed. If you do have other issues, they should show up then.
    If you end up being able to boot to the optical drive, you could try running the extended version of the Apple Hardware test yourself.
    Good luck!

  • 27" (Late 2012) iMac won't boot from any external drives.

    I just got my 27" iMac (late 2012) with Fusion Drive. I can't get it to boot off any my external LaCie drive. I just get an "Ø" symbol. tried this so far:
    Ensured the OS on my external drive is 10.8.2 - didn't help.
    Updated (reinstalled) Mountain Lion on the external drive, using the Recovery HD that comes with the iMac, just in case it's a "special verision". - didn't help.
    Connected via Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 adaptor - didn't help.
    Connected via USB2 port on HDD to USB3 port on iMac - didn't help.
    Used "Startup Disk" system prefs - didn't help.
    Used "hold doen ALT key" after startup chime. Can see the drive but - didn't help.
    So - has anyone had any luck booting a new iMac off an external device at all?
    I might try a Carbon Copy Clone of the Fusion Drive - but I'm thinking it's a waste of time - instinct tells me it's a Firmware limitationin the machine that prevents booting from externals.

    trying a clone after all due to this discussion https://discussions.apple.com/message/20938457#20938457

  • IMac G4 won't boot from FireWire HDD

    Hi everyone, I recently got a 1st generation iMac G4 with OS 9.2. I updated RAM to 768 mb and now I'd like to install Tiger on it. I found my old Tiger DVD but it looks like the DVD drive in to the iMac doesn't work properly. When I put in the DVD, it spins a little bit and than is expelled. After a few attempts, I was able to make the iMac read it, and open the installer, but when I pressed the Restart button I got an error saying that the CD (??) could not be set as startup device. It was indeed grayed out in the Startup Disk Control Panel. I don't know whether the problem is the DVD drive or the disk itself (which looks a bit scratchy).
    On the Internet I found out that I could try to boot via FireWire on an external HDD. I had the .dmg of the Tiger DVD I did when I bought the original disk, and with the Restore option I put the image on the drive (1 TB, FW400 MyBook, previously formatted in a single partition using Apple Partition Map) so that it can be recognized by OS9 as a bootable DVD. And indeed it is. The problem is that, again, when I press the restart button in the Install Mac OS X program I get the same error massage saying: "Startup Disk was unable to select the install CD as the startup disk (-2)". This time, though, I can manage to manually set the external drive as the startup disk, but when I reboot I get the "question mark icon" (which usually means that the Mac is unable read the partition selected), and then it reboots in OS9. I cannot understand if the partition I created is not bootable, or if the drive is not read by the open firmware on boot. If I boot with the option key depressed, the only boot option I get is the internal HDD, and I can't manage to see the external HDD: I tried to change cable, change ports, press refresh button multiple times, but it doesn't see the FireWire drive. I also tried to reset NVRAM (which brought back to life the internal speaker), open firmware and PMU, in this order, but this didn't solve the problem.
    So what else can I do? Thank you for your help, I hope my English was good enough for you to understand the problem :)
    Dario

    Unfortunately, it didn't work :( so the situation now is as follows: I bought a FW400-to-FW800 adapter on eBay, and it perfectly works; my mid-2010 MacBookPro (Snow Leopard) has a perfectly working SuperDrive; I have a copy of Tiger's retail DVD with some scratches and a copy of the same DVD I made from a disk image of Tiger that I made when I bought the disk some years ago.
    So I connected the 2 Macs via the FireWire cable+adapter, I booted the MacBook in Target Disk Mode and put the DVD (I tried with both of them) in the SuperDrive, and then turned on the iMac on OS 9.2, but nothing appears on it's desktop. On the System Profiler, in the Devices&Volumes tab, in the FireWire section I only see a kind of code that I also see when there's nothing plugged in. I tried to change FireWire ports but nothing happens, apart from the iMac freezing sometimes. Am I doing something wrong? Or is it the case my MacBook is not suitable to do this job?
    Thanks again

  • My 27" iMac Freezes, Won't boot from DVD

    My iMac has started to freeze up every few minutes.  Every so often, it becomes unresponsive; the mouse cursor still moves (sometimes it turns into a beach ball), but I can't click or type anything.  Whenever this happens, the hard drive begins to churn as if it's reading or writing something big.  This usually lasts only about thirty seconds to a minute, but it's happening with frustrating regularity. 
    I've been trying to troubleshoot this for a few days, now.  I'll walk you through the steps I've tried so far. 
    I ran a check on the hard drive with Disk Utility.  This came back with a message about the files/directories not matching up with their expected counts.  The solution it suggested was to boot from a Snow Leopard disc and let Disk Utility run a Repair Disk while the startup drive is not mounted.  It was at this point that I realized that I couldn't boot from the dvd.  Whether holding 'C' or 'Option', when it tries to boot from the disc, it gets to the Apple logo and then hangs. 
    I kept researching and found a workaround; boot into Single User Mode and perform fsck, which fixed the Disk Utility error, but did not solve the freezes/noises, and I still can't boot from the dvd. 
    Any ideas? 

    Thank you for your prompt response. 
    Well, I'm not sure if I explained it clearly.  Holding the Option key does indeed bring up a list of bootable devices.  The problem arises when control is passed to the Snow Leopard disc.  The Apple logo flashes, I can hear the optical drive being accessed, but then it locks up. 
    I should also clarify that it's not the disc that came with the iMac.  I just moved and can't find the original disc, so I borrowed my neighbor's (which came from a Macbook he bought after mine (which I bought last year)).  I am under the impression that Macs can't boot from discs that are older than the version of OS X that they shipped with.  I wouldn't think that's the issue, here, as his came out later than mine, but I've still got a lot to learn about life in the Appleverse. 
    My data should be safe--I've got an up to date Time Machine backup on an external drive.  The performance issues aside, I'm really looking to understand the underlying problem(s) here. 
    So, one option is that the RAM might be bad.  I can test that by swapping out each DIMM and checking if the problem is resolved.  One thing I don't understand, though, is why bad RAM would manifest as the hard drive being accessed.  Is there a definitive way to test the logic board, as there is for testing RAM? 
    Also, I keep thinking of other little syptoms which may or may not be related. 
    Recap of Symptoms: 
    Magic Mouse occasionally loses its magic (right click, multitouch, etc.) and needs to be turned off and on. 
    Free disk space fluctuates by as much as eight gigs (without my intervention). 
    System stalls (accompanied by HD access sounds) multiple times per hour. 
    Can't boot from dvds (though, this could be a version problem). 
    **Fixed:  Disk Utility Verify Disk error. 
    I do understand that this might be a hardware error, and I certainly know how much trouble that sort of thing is to find/fix.  I'm definitely willing to open the case and swap out DIMMs and drives, but not until I've exhausted my software solution options.  *crosses fingers* 

  • Too bad mini server won't boot from an external drive

    It won't. Enterprise TEch support confirmed this. I bought thew new mini server to get a good value fast machine with a quad i-7.
    What's the purpose of Thuderbolt if my apps and doc folders have to reside on a SATA disk?
    They really should have non server version with the i7 quad.
    Even better Apple should make it clear that this is the case. Even the guy in the apple store said I coud boot it form an external drive!

    Yes this will all take some time for sure.
    If you want to keep lion server on your current machine, then yes, that is correct. It doesnt hurt to have a few spare 500gb+ hard drives to help the long process.
    See there was previous controversy with the mac mini servers with the dual cores (the one I have) because we all wanted the better processors but to not run the server version and some also wanted to be able boot from other drives. Same as you..
    In non lion versions of OSX you would normally put the SL Server DVD or SL DVD into your mac and instead of installing a fresh OS, you would select utilities , then restore from time machine backup. You could also obviously use an external drive or SD card with SL or SL server installer loaded on it to install the OS or perform the restore.
    That being said
    I personally only know how to use a Snow leopard Server or Regular snow leopard installer DVD (or disc imaged external hard drive partition as just mentioned) to use time machine to restore an OS. I personally dont have experience with the lion disc repair for using its utilities to restore from a backup. Im sure it works the same way though when you hold option and boot from it..
    If you are looking to go NON server on your OS you must have a Snow leopard retail version DVD (not leopard upgrade version)  to be installed on to an external drive.
    So what you would do is Set up a partitioned external hard drive and load it up with Snow leopard, upgrade it in app store to lion ($29 ) , then update it with software update, back it up to another partition using time machine, then boot from the install dvd (or disc imaged partitioned installer of SL) , go to utilities, and select restore from backup, when its asks wher eto install choose the external you want to boot from (must be partitioned using GUID partition table) and install. When you want to boot from that drive, hold option right after you power up your machine until it gives you the option of the drive you want to boot from, select it and boot.
    Unfortunately like I said you will have to have a snow leopard retail installer (no longer at the apple store only online or ebay for $30) and then would have to 'upgrade' to lion in order to NOT have lion server version on a mac mini set up for server.
    If lion server version is good for you then yes do what you wrote in the reply would work. My experience with server snow leopard was that it was slower than snow leopard regular and it extremely interfered with my music production even though I was not running any of its server options..
    I hope this helps..

  • BB iMac G3 Won't Boot From CD

    I can't seem to get my friend's G3 iMac (Bondi Blue) that to boot from a CD. It's spent it's life as part of a corporate network so on boot it tries to load something from the network called "Macintosh Manager." Because it is no longer connected to that and I don't have an admin password, I can't get any further. It forces me to shutdown.
    I don't have the original OS9 systems disks, but I do have a OSX 10.2 install disk. But I can't get the CDROM drive to boot the disk. I can hear it spin up for 2-3 seconds, but then it stops. It continues to try this until I eject the CD, then it goes into it's Macintosh Manager behavior described above.
    I suspect the CD drive is bad, or perhaps the drive control electronics on the logic board are shot. Any ideas?
    Frank

    Depending on just how paranoid they were at that company, they could have made it very difficult to boot from an alternate source of software. But if you can find a Mac OS 9 CD, try booting from that and removing anything with "Multiple Users", "MultiUser Startup", or "Mac Manager" in its name, and you may succeed in defeating it.
    The Bondi Blue iMac is very much like an early iBook with an integrated CRT. It uses a very similar insubstantial CD Drive. But changing Hardware requires removing the chassis, so I would try the OS 9 CD first. OS X 10.2 is very cranky. It may just be deciding not to boot...because!

  • Can the iMac G3 with Panther boot from an external FireWire drive?

    It does have firewire. I am worried that if my internal HD fails, I am going to be SOL. Sooo... If I install just Panther (full retail) on a new internal HD, will i be able to boot from it? How about if it is on an external FW drive? I DO NOT have the original install disks that came with the computer.

    If I install just Panther (full retail) on a new internal HD, will i be able to boot from it?
    Yes. Verify that the computer's firmware is up to date first.
    How about if it is on an external FW drive?
    Yes.
    (29546)

  • IMac 20" won't boot from AppleCare disk

    Hello all,
    I have a new (1.5 weeks) iMac iSight 20" and am thrilled with its performance (it does not have any noticeable noise, nor does it have any dead pixels). I have tried to boot it from the AppleCare disk (the one with TechTool on it) but it will not boot. I have used that disk to install TechTool successfully on the iMac HD, but it will not boot from that disk. The iMac will boot from the OSX install disk that came with the iMac, and I have done so in order to run repair permissions before and after updates. Is there something easy I'm missing regarding booting from the Applecare disk? I'm not new to Macs, but I am new to iMacs and OSX. Any help is greatly appreciated.

    Hello all,
    Acting upon the advice I received here, I called AppleCare. Although it took 32 minutes, they did finally agree that the issue was with the AppleCare disk, and they are sending me a new one. I did note one interesting thing. I visited MicroMat's web page to see what the most current version is of TechTool Pro, and it is 3.0.4. That is the version on my current AppleCare disk. I guess the incompatability must be with something else on the disk. Thanks for all the prompt replies and great advice.

  • Bondi iMac 233 won't boot from hard drive,

    I have a Bondi iMac 233, 192MB running OSX 10.3 which was being throw out at work, the hard drive (40GB IBM Deathstar) was failing but it would still boot up. I installed an original 6GB iMac Hard Drive, low level formated the drive and installed OS9.2. Now the iMac refuses to boot from this hard drive or even another 4GB Hard Drive.
    The iMac will boot from CD and I can see and install a new OS onto the Hard Drive, OS9 or OSX, I can choose the drive under the Startup Control Panel but the computer refuses to boot from the Hard Drive.
    I have zapped the PRAM,
    Reset the NVRAM
    Reset the CUDA chip.
    Reset the Logic Board
    Reseated Cables
    Reseated Processor and memory modules
    All to no avail.
    Does anyone have any other ideas?
    thanks
    Bondi iMac   Mac OS 9.2.x  

    I've been doing this with about 14 iMacs slot/tray that I'm prepping for inner city kindergartens in Chicago. I have had that problem where in moving from 10.3.9 to 9.2.2 the iMacs wouldn't recognize the HDs. Booting from an original iMac OS 9 install disc and selecting the HD as start up has always solved the problem for me.
    However, and maybe this is related,
    I've had the problem with a couple of tray loaders where in moving from 10 to 9 it wouldn't recognize the CD-ROM drive. I went through a bunch of drives before I figured out that booting from an iMac OS 8.6 CD made the iMac rerecognize the drive. I was able to reset?? all the drives that wouldn't previously work using this method. Weird but maybe there's a chip in the drive board that needed to be reset. Dunnno about the HDs tho' but it could be related.
    Richard

  • Booting from an External USB 2.0 Drive

    Can someone please point me to an explanation on how to set-up a bootable drive using an external USB 2.0 drive and a MacBook?
    Thanks

    Well, as long as you have the drive you just need the software.
    There are a few different ones that will do it. I use SuperSuper, but there is also Carbon Copy Cloner, and LaCie's SilverKeeper both of which are free.
    Once you have the software, it is just a matter of running the cloning tool and then testing the clone to verify that it does indeed boot your Mac.

  • Problems with External Seagate GoFlex Firewire Drive Disconnecting on Sleep Mode

    I am Running a 2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 24" iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.3. I run time machine to backup to an external Seagate 3TB, FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, FireWire Drive. When the Mac goes into sleep mode, the Seagate drive un-mounts. When the Mac wakes up, I get an error that the drive was not properly disconnected and the drive is no longer mounted. The only way I can get the drive to remount, is to remove power from the drive for several seconds and then reconnect it.
    I have seen several people talking about this issue in various forums with many various makes and models of FireWire drives, but I see no answers to this issue from Apple. Does anyone have a resolution to this issue, or are we just stuck with this problem? It is terribly frustrating!!!! The lack of response or interest from Apple is even more frustrating!!!

    Wish I had an answer, or even a clue about this one. I have a Western Digital MyBook Studio that I've had for a fair number of years now and finally had to resort to just plugging it it as a USB device. Since it's only used for Time Machine backups and storing things I rarely need, it's not a huge burden, but I'd love to hear from anyone with a suggestion as to how to fix this. I recently upgraded from a 17" late 2006 iMac to a Mid 2011 21.5" iMac and would really like to go back to FireWire if it's not going to be a big-ole-pain in the hind end.

  • IMAC Retina won't boot external HD

    Dear Apple Community,
    I've tried to get my iMac Retina 5K to boot from an external thurderbolt HD using three different OS X installations: 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9... each time I get an error screen.
    Does the new iMAC boot anything other than 10.10?
    Cheers in advance,
    Daniel

    I have no experience with FCP 7, so I make these remarks in a vacuum.
    Some day your "old mac" will die!
    I have installed Snow Leopard Server in Parallels so as to be able to access Rosetta and run the old PowerPC applications.
    You may be able to run FCP 7 and its components in Parallels running an earlier version of OS X, such as Snow Leopard Server or Lion.
    Apple discounted the price of Snow Leopard Server by 95% and it is my advice to anyone who may have such a future need to purchase it now for $20 and put it on the shelf for that later need.  If/when Apple ever eliminates the discount or ceases sales of Snow Leopard Server at all, its price on the third party market will once again skyrocket.
    You can obtain Snow Leopard Server from The Apple Store 1.800.MYAPPLE (1.800.692.7753) - Apple Part Number: MC588Z/A (telephone orders only).
    PS: RCA abandoned that logo in this country and my avatar is now my trademark (servicemark) in the State of California!

Maybe you are looking for