Heatherdowns

Q: My Power Mac G4 won't boot beyond the grey screen circle with a line through it.  I have tried all sorts of key commands to no avail.  It was running OS X 10.6

My Power Mac G4 Sawtooth won't boot up beyond the grey screen.  It stops with a circle with a line through it.  I have tried all sorts of key combinations to get it to booth from CD/DVD, external drives, recovery and nothing happens.  I do have the original disk set that came with it.  On start up I do hear the chime.  If I hold down Option Key, it shows me OS X.  I select that and get this death circle.  I have even removed the hard drive and put it into an external enclosure and connected it to my MacBook Pro.  Immediately a message says that the disk needs to be repaired but my Disk Repair utility (El Capitan) cannot fix it.  I cannot even make a new disk image to clone it.  Help!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2008), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jun 15, 2016 7:05 AM

Close

Q: My Power Mac G4 won't boot beyond the grey screen circle with a line through it.  I have tried all sorts of key commands to n ... more

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jun 15, 2016 7:08 AM in response to Heatherdowns
    Level 9 (53,622 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 15, 2016 7:08 AM in response to Heatherdowns

    Check the exact specifications of the items you report. A G4 cannot possibly run OSX 10.6

  • by Heatherdowns,

    Heatherdowns Heatherdowns Jun 15, 2016 8:31 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 15, 2016 8:31 AM in response to Limnos

    My mistake.  I thought it was Snow Leopard.  I do know that it was the last system available to run on a Power PC.    Regardless, I still cannot not boot.

  • by K Shaffer,

    K Shaffer K Shaffer Jun 15, 2016 12:53 PM in response to Heatherdowns
    Level 6 (14,249 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 15, 2016 12:53 PM in response to Heatherdowns

    If you have a system installer DVD (should be no later than Leopard 10.5.x) check to see

    if the computer can boot from disk #1 to try & use Disk Utility to see if the main HDD shows.

     

    Could be the hard drive may have failed. Another issue that may be part of the problem, is

    the clock or pram battery may be dead. This battery can contribute to startup issues.

     

    The hard disk drive is a likely culprit; if you have an externally enclosed clone on FW400

    drive device, you could see if that would start the computer; as well it should. A clone is

    a great way to test and troubleshoot main startup issues, in addition to being a backup.

     

    Good luck & happy computing!

  • by Heatherdowns,

    Heatherdowns Heatherdowns Jun 15, 2016 1:51 PM in response to K Shaffer
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 15, 2016 1:51 PM in response to K Shaffer

    Very good suggestions.  However, I have tried booting from all the install discsI have including Leopard and get the same result.  Hold down C key, same result.  I can check the battery but I replaced that about 6 months ago.  I am fairly sure that the  is corrupted .  If I only had another Power Mac that I could use to make a boot drive.  Then I could reformat the disk and reinstall.  So I think I am stuck until I find another compatible Mac or go to a Mac repair shop.

    Thanks for the reply.