Web dude
Level 1 (4 points)
iPhone

Q: G4 tower, black box showing up on startup screen

I have a G4 tower, OSX tiger, SATA drive750GB plugged into a PCI SATA card. After cloning my hard drive with OSX Tiger and rebooting, I get either a black box on the startup screen or the dreaded power button with lots of text in front of it. I have a blank hard drive that mounts on the desktop and I tried to reinstall OSX Tiger onto this drive but it'll crash at about 95%

 

Please help

Posted on Mar 3, 2016 3:22 PM

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Web dude

Q: G4 tower, black box showing up on startup screen

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  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 3, 2016 6:54 PM in response to Web dude
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 3, 2016 6:54 PM in response to Web dude

    I don't think all PCI SATA cards are supported for booting OS X on a Mac. I'd remove the HD & fit it into an external case (or SATA to firewire converter if available). See if that boots.

     

    Do you have any way to boot the Mac - are you certain it isn't on it's last legs? Boot to an install disk to see if it is reliable or capable of working.

     

    I think older Mac models don't support 'large volumes' (over 128GB), 750BG seems too large for some G4's, I don't know if the PCI card can alter that.

     

    You should post more detail on the model & hardware you are using, someone may have used that setup.

     

    FYI: The 'power button' on screen is a kernel panic…

    OS X: About kernel panics

    Mac OS X: How to log a kernel panic - Apple Support

  • by Web dude,

    Web dude Web dude Mar 4, 2016 2:33 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 4, 2016 2:33 PM in response to Drew Reece

    So I have the model G4 AGP, 500MB dual CPU tower, internal 200GB IDE hard drive,OSX Tiger, sata pci card with 750GB sata drive.

    The weird part is I have booted my Mac normally with the drives showing up on the desktop. Then I'd move the mouse around a bit and it'll freeze up shortly.

    After a reboot, the dreaded kernel panic will show or a black box in front.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 4, 2016 3:06 PM in response to Web dude
    Level 5 (7,537 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 4, 2016 3:06 PM in response to Web dude

    I think you will have to search around to see if it supports large volumes, this post claims it can't but that may be an issue with OS 9…

    firmware update for g4 agp 400

    I'm not sure if the 500 is the same as the 400.

     

    You may be able to use the disk if it is partitioned to smaller sizes, but I would expect booting to fail, so I don't know what is going on for you.

    I think you need to spend some time running a known good OS - e.g. an install CD that is in good order.  If the Mac dies with that system you know the hardware needs testing or remove parts to see if the issue ceases.

     

    There should be panic logs you can view (see earlier link) safe mode & verbose mode may give you info too. It's around 15 years old - when was it last used, do you know if it was unstable? Single user mode should allow you to repair any disk corruption after a failed shutdown unless the disk is in a very bad state.

    Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple ...

    How to start up your Mac in single-user or verbose mode - Apple Support

     

    This cropped up in search, looks useful for the troubleshooting guide…

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/55669677/Power-Mac-G4-AGP-Graphics

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Mar 4, 2016 3:20 PM in response to Web dude
    Level 10 (123,633 points)
    Mar 4, 2016 3:20 PM in response to Web dude

    Just wondering, nothing before 10.4.6 will deal with Advanced Format Disks with 4096 Byte Sectors, possibly the card handles that or not.