Leopard 10.5.8 won't boot

Here's is a mindbender for you to ponder:
Had a power outage.
My hopped up G4 tower with 2 - 200 GB EIDE drives on an EIDE PCI card. It crashed and one 200 GB EIDE drive didn't survive.
(Yes it was on a UPS but the UPS ran dry and the G4 crashed before it could be gently shutdown)
I removed the crashed drive and made sure the remain drive was jumpered as a single master drive.
It wouldn't boot. All I got was the gray screen (no logo no paddle wheels, no start-up gong)
I replaced the battery on the motherboard (commonly known as the PRAM battery)
It wouldn't boot but I heard the start-up gong.
I booted off the Leopard install DVD and ran Disk Utility repair disk and repair permissions. No problems were found.
It wouldn't boot. Still gonged though.
I installed Leopard onto an external firewire drive and connected it. Restarted holding down the option key to select a boot drive. Selected the Firewire drive.
It wouldn't boot - gray screen only (and the gong).
I installed Leopard onto the surviving drive and it appeared to install properly.
It wouldn't boot (get used to this result).
I erased the 200 GB drive and installed Leopard onto it.
It wouldn't boot.
I took my trusty PowerBook - booted it in target mode and then connected it to the G4 and booted off of it. Success! That worked. So I downloaded the Leopard Combo Updater and updated the Leopard on the 200 GB drive.
Tried to boot off the 200 GB drive.
It wouldn't boot - however now I have an Apple logo on the gray screen - still no paddle wheel though.
At this point I was reseating PCI boards, EIDE cables, and all that stuff. Yes, yes, I reset PRAM a few times and so forth.
It wouldn't boot.
I pulled 2 SCSI drives out of another G4 tower and installed them and "option-started" the G4, selected a SCSI drive to boot from and it booted off an old version of Tiger.
Once it booted, I could see the 200 GB EIDE drive and put files on it and everything! So, it's not like the drive is broken. I ran Disk Utility again just to be sure and it appears to be fine.
When I select it as the start-up disk, it won't boot.
I am seriously out of ideas. Do you have any?
Many thanks.

The "boot" drive is jumpered "Master" and connected on the end connector of the IDE ribbon?
Only the drive on the Master setting and connector is bootable with the Sonnet ATA/133 controller.
The latest firmware is 4.5.0:
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=330&expand=_a3_a13_a2_b52_a1&act ion=b325#b325
Wonder if a firmware update is doable or would help....... such an old card in an OS way newer than the cards support level, always a scary thing to mess with......

Similar Messages

Leopard Crashed and now won't boot

Hi there,
I was surfing the net earlier with my black macbook, with leopard updated to the most recent updates. But as I was on Safari opening up another webpage, the spinning beach ball bigins (just like a normal safari crash, or like an overload), so I just switched to iTunes, to try to play music while trying to wait out on Safari, but then iTunes started freezing up as well, so I went to spotlight trying to open activity monitor, and spotlight froze as well after entering two characters... so I just shut off my macbook by holding the power button (so far seemed like an usual crash).
But when I turned on my macbook again, after the starup chime, it stayed at the blank white/gray screen (where the apple would usually show), and then after a long time, it shows the folder with the quetion mark. So I knew there is a problem with finding the startup volume.
So now I restarted with holding the option key for startup manager (the fan started running faster/louder), and I could see that my harddrive is indeed there, so I chose it, and it begins the apple and the small spinning thing under the apple like an usual startup, and I was able to get to the login panel as usual, but then it froze there.
When I restarted again (without holding option), it booted normally with apple and the spinning thing under it, but then it wouldn't get past it, so I had to shut down my macbook again.
and when I restarted my macbook, apple appears as normal again, but it still is not getting past that stage, and then the apple turned into a "prohibit" sign (a circle with a line through), while the spinning circle thing under it still spins, so I shut it down again.
And now when I start macbook, without option key will get me to the question mark folder, with option key will get me to an empty startup manager (the drive is no longer there, but on earlier 5 to 6 tries it was).
It is strange because it doesn't sound like a dead HD to me, as I was able to
1)find it, and boot from it in startup manager
2)be able to get to the login panel
3) and there isn't unusual noise when booting/turning on the macbook
So I'm lost about what I should do now
I give my most sincere thanks in advance =[

Hi Will~,
It is difficult to tell, but it sounds like you have an intermittent hard drive failure which may have also messed up your startup volume.
Do you have your Leopard install disk? The first thing I would try would be to boot to it (insert disk, hold down C while starting up) and go to Disk Utility. *S.M.A.R.T. status* of the hard drive would be good to know, as well as *Repair Disk*.
Best of luck.

DVD drive won't boot from Leopard or Tiger disks

Hi,
I have had some issues booting from the OS install disks with my DVD drive, is it the drive or is it the software?
Can this be fixed?
Thanks
Tom

There are known issues with some Leopard discs not booting, but if your Tiger disc won't boot either, I would say you probably have a defective optical drive.
-Bmer
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My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard (via my MacBookPro), either from the HD or DVD drive. Can't get it to run Hardware Test. Disk Utility says disk OK - files are there. What can I do?

My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard. I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and usin my MacBookPro as the host. But after numerous attempts I still can't get it to boot either from the HD or DVD drive. I just get the white screen after the wheel stops spinning. I can't get it to run Hardware Test - just get the white screen. If I use Disk Utility via my MBP it says the disk appears OK. All the Snow Leopad files appear to have been installed. What can I do?

Hi-NRG Bwoy wrote:
I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and using my MacBookPro as the host.
Reet the SMC and the PRAM
 Cheat sheet to help diagnose and fix your Mac
Perhaps you installed the wrong version OS X onto the iMac, you can't use the disk from another Mac.
clean the disk.
If it's not working then use this method to create a bootable 10.6 USB from the iMac machine specific 10.6 disk or the 10.6.3 retail disk on your other Mac, use it to boot the iMac with.
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

22" iMac desktop OSX 10.6.6 Snow Leopard and it won't boot. I've tried shift start, option command+P+R. It's stuck at the restart, all I see is the spinning wheel below the apple logo.

I have a 22" iMac desktop running OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard and it won't boot. I've tried shift start, option command P R. It's stuck at the restart, all I see is the spinning wheel below the apple logo. And I lost my OSX DVD is there any way to fix this? I just did a software update yesterday and have about 20GB left on my Hard drive. The last thing I did was try to install some plugin's for Pro Tools 8, but it wouldnt let me install so I restarted and now I'm screwed. Please Help!
other specs for my computer: 3.06GHz Intel core 2 duo processor 500 GB Serial ATA hard drive, iSight, magic mouse, wireless mac keyboard
iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.6)

You have to consider the possibility the hard drive may be dying. If your data isn't backed up, try one of the tools below:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689
Once you are sure your data is backed up, we can examine other possibilities. In the meantime call AppleCare for your original installation DVDs. You may need them.

Upgrade from snow leopard 10.6.8 to montain lion on a iMac system won't boot getting a crossed out circle

Upgrade from snow leopard 10.6.8 to montain lion on a iMac system won't boot getting a crossed out circle

Clean install OS.10.6.8 update it completly. May be you ignored some firmware update.
I have two incedents.
My thunderbolt port stopped working after upgrading to ML 10.8. I booted from external 10.6 , 10.7 still didnt work. Then i clean installed 10.6.8 and ran software update it updated the thunderbolt firmware and all is well now. This firmware update for some reason didnt show up in ML 10.8.
Secondly , when i upgraded my Brother's Macbook from 10.5 to 10.6.3 it would install but stuck with crossed out circle. Then i downgraded checked for update found an efi update , then the 10.6.3 worked fine.

If leopard won't boot from dvd, use disk utility mount to partition

wanted to share a way that i successfully installed os 9, tiger, and leopard on 1 hard drive. first of all, leopard was the only installation that i had difficulty with. it would not boot off the original dvd, no matter if i held down the 'c' key or the option key, so this is what i did after a lot of reading on the internet to try and troubleshoot this issue.
First thing i did was partition my internal hard drive in 3 partitions using disk utility. the 3rd partition was around 9gb. I installed os9 first on the 1st partition, i then installed tiger on that same partition. then i put in my leopard dvd, and opened up disk utility. and clicked on "restore", and dragged the dvd image as the "source", and chose the 9gb partition as the destination, and clicked on restore. then, i changed the "startup disk" to start from the 9gb where i just restored the image, and rebooted, and went through the leopard setup and chose the 2nd partition as the place to install. this should work with the dvd, or if you made an image from the dvd. I hope this helps someone else whose dvd won't boot, because it was very frustrating after you purchase a faster processor, and faster video card so that your system meets the requirements, and then the dvd won't boot.

Two ways. Use another computer to restore the install disc to one of those ext HD. Then, use it to boot the other machine. Get an ext CD/DVD reader and use it to read the install disc and boot the machine. However, if both the HD and optical reader are kaput, then a trip to an Apple repair station is in order.

Snow leopard installation disc won't boot. Can I reset computer to boot from internal hard drive at startup?

I recently installed snow leopard on my macbook (mid 2006). I used system preferences to set the snow leopard boot disc as the install disc, and now my computer won't boot. It stalls at the apple icon with the grey screen. Is there any way I can set my computer to reboot from my internal hard drive at startup without having access to system prefernces (a keyboard code or something)?

Thank you so much for responding. I actually just pushed the trackpad button at startup. It ejected the install disc and automatically booted from the internal. I am sure your method would have worked as well. Thanks again!

Snow leopard won't boot, but windows bootcamp does.

My mac has a partitioned hardrive. I have xp on one side and snow leopard on the other. Starting yesterday, snow leopard won't boot. I ran the apple hardware test and came up with these 2 codes: 4MOT/4/40000003:HDD-1347 and -1352. The mac still runs properly though if started with xp.

That error is the HDD cooling fan I believe.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, or are running 10.7+, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
Re-install if that doesn't work.

MacBook Pro Won't Boot from Leopard DVD

My brother's MacBook Pro (2009 13") won't boot from the Leopard install DVD. Here is what happened:
- I tried to do Bootcamp on it. I installed Windows 7 but realized that there were no Bootcamp drivers for that.
- Deleted Widnows 7 and put the XP install disc in. Somehow, it formatted my Mac partition instead of my Windows partition.
- Now that the MBP was only running Windows XP, I connected it to my iMac in target disk mode and wiped it (GUID, one Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition).
- I tried to put the Leopard (10.5.0) install DVD in there so I can restore from the Time Machine backup, and it sees it when I hold option at bootup but refuses to boot from it.
- I reset the PRAM and tried again, no luck.
What is going on here? Does it have to do with the fact that it was doing Bootcamp? I either want to boot from the disc or somehow restore from Time Machine some other way. I can use another computer (my iMac) if I need to.

Haha yeah, I posted right before. The thing I'm wondering now: Does this mean that a Mac that came with Lion cannot be downgraded to Snow Leopard? Well, I'll save it for another question if I ever cross that bridge.
Limnos wrote:
Just so we know, this is the original OS disc that came with this computer? Even if you're trying to use a retail installer disc I am not sure those came out the the sufficient sub-version required to boot the computer (I think it needs at least 10.5.7 but don't have the specifics of your model).
Edit: I guess I'm a slow typist.

Leopard DVD won't boot after bad install

I ran the leopard installation yesterday and I realized that i needed to do some more work on the drive before i installed, so i clicke cancel and restarted the computer. Now the dvd won't boot. I installed tiger again(came with laptop) and tried doing various other things with the disk. Almost any ntensive use of the disk (booting from it, trying to clone it, etc.) will result in the superdrive powering up and then down repeatedly, sans result. I left the leopard dvd to boot for hours and when it tries it gets to the grey logo and the drive does that power up/down cycle endlessly. I can boot from ubuntu's disk and the tiger disk that came with my computer. The disk mounts to the desktop, btw, and i can browse the files and everything. Apple support was no help.

I've been doing some work with the disk. I did another attempt at creating a dmg from it and got the same result, so I googled the error which led me to a thread on this site with a similar issue. The error was input/output error. They found that it was due to a corrupt file... so I did a cp -r of the disk and it said that a few files did not exist:
cp -r "Mac OS X Install DVD" /Users/mattebooks/Desktop/Leopard
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libpython.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libpython2.5.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libpython2.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libruby.1.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libruby.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libtcl.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libtcl8.4.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libtk.dylib: No such file or directory
cp: Mac OS X Install DVD/usr/lib/libtk8.4.dylib: No such file or directory
So I set Finder to show hidden files and went to these files libpython and libpython2.5 are aliases of libpython2 and libpython2 is an alias of a file in a non-existing folder. A little more digging and I find out that the python, ruby, tcl and tk framework folders are all missing, all from the same folder... interesting. Maybe I could add the files in and reburn the disk. My guess is that the loader looks for these files repeatedly. The path to the files is /System/Library/Frameworks/... If anyone could email these to me I could try and rebuild the disk...

Mac won't boot after leopard install

hi - installed leopard on my imac but now my mac won't boot:
i have already tried the following:
1) safe mode - but won't boot
2) single user mode - ran fsck - said no issues
3) did target mode with firewire cbale to my macbook and ran disk utility - no repairs needed - and i can see all my files on original computer
4) reinstalled leopard from holding down options key - leopard installed again
but for all of abv - when i reboot i still get white apple logo screen and the spinning wheel...
any other way to get into safe mode - as that is only thing i have not been able to start....
thanks!
susan

tigerswim, welcome to Apple Discussions.
Did you already have Tiger installed or did you have Panther 10.3 installed? Tiger is not a free upgrade; you have to buy it & then update (for free) using the download updates from Apple. Also, you have to use a universal/retail install DVD (or CDs) to install Tiger. You cannot use the install DVD from another model Mac.

G5 won't boot into Leopard

Hello everyone,
I've got a weird issue with my PowerMac G5 and Leopard. My 11 year old was experimenting with the GUI, and it's possible that he ended up interfering with the online OS update, or something along these lines (I wasn't there to see what he did). Or maybe it's a totally different issue. Right now the G5 won't boot. When powered on, it chimes, displays the large brown-ish apple, and stops dead in its tracks. I've tried unplugging it for 5 minutes, pushing the PMU reset button, resetting PRAM, but haven't made much progress. Same result when trying to boot off OS X DVD. When it was working, I noticed that it was having trouble keeping time, I thought the CMOS battery may need replacing soon. Can a dead battery be causing this issue, even after all the resets? When the apple is displayed, does it mean it tried booting the OS and failed, or did it not even get that far? I don't hear any sounds coming from the hard disk. Another oddity: about a minute after it's been powered on with the apple still up on the screen, it starts to sound like a jet engine spooling up. It's a gradual increase in fan RPM (power supply fans also) to the point that it becomes VERY loud and sounds like it's about to blow up. What's going on here?
Thanks in advance for any ideas / suggestions.

I have more info... I was able to get the G5 into the boot device selection screen; when I tell it to boot off the hard disk, I hear the hard disk chirp, the G5 throws up the apple screen, and everything goes dead.
I also booted into the OpenFirmware (as suggested in another forum), and ran the reset-nvram command, followed by reset-all. Now when it boots into the device selection screen, I don't see the DVD at all anymore!
Thanks!

New iMAC. TRIED TO INSTALL LEOPARD. EJECTS CD. WON'T BOOT OFF INSTALL CD

WHAT A NIGHTMARE!New iMac came today-- with antique software. Tiger installed from factory-- and way out of date. Leopard DVD included in box-- tried to install- just keeps ejecting the CD when trying to do the reboot. 2.5 hours on the phone with overseas Apple support (ha!)-- machine will not boot from install CD's (either Leopard or Tiger). Keeps ejecting the cd.
What crap. ANybody else have this problem? I bought a mac because I didn't want to fight sw issues. Boy was this a mistake.
Any advice appreciated, or I'm sending the POS back to Apple get a refund and buy a Dell.

l8_apexer wrote:
what would you think of ordering a machine based on seeing it demoed with Leopard-- only to have it shipped from the factory in China with Tiger-- and first thing it does is look for softwre updates-- and find over 150MB of updates it wants to install-- -within its first 15 minutes of being powered up????
If that's not shipping a machine with old software- I don't know what is.
What's the fuss about apple anyway? Shipping machines that don't have current sw loaded, won't boot from install DVDs, and then tell the customer that it will take two weeks to replace the unit-- or I can drive to an APple store (with gas at 3.25 a gallon which is an hour away) and maybe they can fix it, but not sure if the parts are available?
Has anybody else had this problem?
I would ask for a new machine with Leopard pre-installed which is what you expected to get and paid for. I can only assume it's an older machine since the new ones do come with Leopard installed.
My opinion, for what it's worth is to return it and ask for the new Leopard version.

Mac Mini, OSX Leopard Server: Won't Boot

I have a Mac Mini Server that 's been stable and connected to my home network wirelessly.
But the signal strength has been so-so.
So I added an Airport Express Modem in my system and installed the adminstrative CD that came with it.
The Mini saw everything and set up the Airport Express fine and it worked great...for about 3 minutes.
I was checking the speed when it became non-responsive. I shut it down and tried rebooting, and the loading ball spun and spun and spun and did nothing.
I tried rebootijng from a regular OSX Disk and it was non-responsive.
I got it into diagfnostic mode, got a diagnostic screen showing me everything was working, but it still only shows a spinning ball forever and won;t boot.
Using an external DVD, tried using the administrative disk, but I also couldn;t get into it.
No matter what I've tried, the "loading ball" spins and spins and spins...and won't actually load anything.
Ideas, suggestions? I HATE to hit the genius's this time of year..IT'll take FOREVER!!!

Smells of a low-level hardware failure.
I'd usually suggest ordering a spare Mac Mini Server, and rolling in your backup, but Leopard is a very long time ago and jumping to Lion is going to be involved. Which leaves you to scrounge something old enough to run Leopard or Snow Leopard, and moving to that.
Or you get to brave the local Apple store, yes.
If you don't have good backups of your disk, stop working with the server Right Now, as - if this is a disk-level error - further activity on a failing device tends to reduce the likelihood of eventually recovering the data.

Leopard 10.5.8 won't boot

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