Just bought used g5 w/o a HDD

Question

I just bought a used MacPro 5 from a friend. He sold it to me for pretty cheap b/c he took the HDD out of it and stuck it in his new machine. SO right now I dont have a HDD with a OS (OSX) on it. I have a few hard drives that I can put in there... RIght now they are in my p.c.'s. I have a copy of OSX and need to know what I gotta do to get this running. I decided to take one of my HDD and install it but when I power on - nothing happens. I was trying to install from the OSX cd but I cant seem to get the CD tray to open. I am using the key on the keyboard to try and open the CD tray.
Would I need to format the HDD on my PC first? i figured I would just format it when the machine booted up. I dont know where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Answer 1

I dont know how long it sat...
So it could be bad PRAM... You could try a reset, though it sounds as though it isn't even getting that far. I think there are also PMU reset directions on the link I provided.
I dont have any of the CDs that came with the computer. BOth versions of OSX that i Have (panther & leopard) were bought from apple.
Good, those should both be retail version discs for any supported computer model. However, it is possible the Panther disc might not work. G5s came with anything from 10.2.7 (Jaguar) to Tiger (10.4.2) depending upon the model of G5. The computer won't boot to anything less than the OS originally used, but you should at least be getting a video signal. It might be handy to know which G5 you have. There's specifications at: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/index-powermac-g5.html The sites below also get information from serial number:
[Computer model lookup by serial number|http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html]
Enter the serial number of the Mac in the text field for "Search Tech Specs" on: [Apple's Tech Specs Page|http://support.apple.com/specs>.
Also, the HDD i installed was taken from my PC and was formatted as NTFS and has windows installed on it. COuld this be causing the problem? should I format it on my PC so it is blank?
The hard drive format right now isn't the issue, but you will eventually need to format it to Mac Extended journaled with Apple Partition Map. Once booted to installer disc you can re-format the drive. To start with we need to get your monitor working and the computer booting to the installer discs (the booting may also bring up the monitor). The only small issue might be if there are jumpers on the drive that are incorrectly set.
I am not personally familiar with the G5 models. I don't know if they still use the half-AA size 3.6V PRAM battery that many Macs before did. If you have a digital multimeter you can check the condition of your present battery. It should read at least 3.2V if it is the 3.6V half-AA battery type. A new battery provides 3.67 Volts DC. A bad battery provides under 3.2 Volts DC. Ideally this should be measured while the battery is under load; added recommendation from Hans777:
I have recently found out that an exhausted battery will still indicate >3.6 V with a high internal resistance VM.
Checking incircuit: powercord disconnected press PMU reset button for >about 5 sec before measuring.
Checking outside: load the battery with a 1500 Ohm resistor when measuring.
Alternatively, test the battery while it is still in the computer.