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Won't boot, Bluetooth keyboard, now swallowed install disc

Hi there,

My G5 Tiger iMac was put in the spare room when I upgraded my iMac some time ago. I went to boot it up the other day (for the first time in quite a few months - possibly a year) and got a grey screen with the spinning icon (not the beach ball). It did this for about half a minute and then the fan kicked in and made it sound like a jet plane. This continued indefinitely, until I forced it to power off by holding in the power button.

So I inserted the G5 install disc (not the Tiger upgrade DVD, so would have been 10.2). The SuperDrive took the disc OK. However, the only keyboard I have is a wireless one. I assume that the iMac is not receiving a bluetooth signal during the boot up process..?

The same thing is happening - I don;t get past the grey Apple logo and spinning icon and the fan kicks into overdrive

Any ideas on how I can get the thing to boot? I don't have a wired keyboard with me, and the only one I'm likely to be able to get hold of is a Windows one.

Thanks,

iMac G5, Intel iMac, Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 14, 2011 10:41 AM

Reply
26 replies

Jan 15, 2011 5:10 AM in response to TWH3

Hmmm, that didn't work.

I've replaced the battery and the iMac behaves in the same way - spinning grey wheel and then fans kicking in like a jet plane.

Other than replacing the batteries are there any other things that need to be done to get the Mac back to it's former glory?

Thanks

Jan 15, 2011 7:12 AM in response to TWH3

Have you checked the [ LEDs|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2831] and looked to see whether the capacitors on the logic board and in the power supply are perfectly flat and not oozing anything?

Try to get hold of a wired keyboard and reset the PRAM You can reset the SMU without a keyboard, so try that as well.





User uploaded file

Jan 15, 2011 1:58 PM in response to MGW

Well this is most frustrating 😟

Borrowed a neighbour's PC keyboard and managed to reset the PRAM (got the second chime)

Checked the LEDs and all OK there (first three light up as they should)

All the capacitors are as flat and smooth as they can be, and certainly not oozing anything.

Even tried holding down C on rebooting.

Still just getting the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning grey disc.

Any further ideas of resurrecting this once wonderful machine would be gate fully received.

Many thanks

Jan 15, 2011 4:08 PM in response to TWH3

You try and use Disk Utility to check it out:

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, 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. (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. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.



If you get that far, see if you can reboot and repair permissions on the internal drive.





User uploaded file

Jan 29, 2011 8:58 AM in response to MGW

Can anyone tell me the name of the FireWire connections/leads that I need. When I went to took at the back of my Intel iMac the FW port was a shape and size I'd Not seen before (I've clearly not connected a FW device for some time!)

I want to by the lead I'll need online but want to make sure I get the right one.

Thanks

Jan 29, 2011 9:44 AM in response to MGW

Sorry... another really basic question... but are there any other types of 400 to 800 leads that are not "9 Pin to 6 Pin - IEEE 1394b". Just want to make sure that there's no possibility of me buying the wrong kind of 400 to 80 lead 🙂

Thanks again for all your help

Feb 2, 2011 1:19 PM in response to MGW

OK, so I booted in Target Mode. Disk Utility found an issue it couldn't repair so I reformatted the disk.

Disk Utility is now happy and reports that the disk id OK but when I reboot the G5 iMac it doesn't get passed the flashing folder and ?.

I'm holding down the c button but that doesn't seem to do anything.

Now a bit puzzled 😟

Feb 2, 2011 2:03 PM in response to MGW

I've tried that.

I've also tried the following:
Holding down the X button
Holding down the C button (as the DVD is still in the drive)
Holding down a mouse button (to eject the DVD)
Resetting the PRAM

Really struggling now - I thought my troubles were over once Disk Utility told me the disk was OK 😟

I've just run Disk Repair again while in target mode, and all appears to be OK, but it is sating "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required." It's bee saying this for a while, but the Log says "Repair tool completed"

Should I wait for the "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required" message to go away - i's taking a while and other searched I've done suggest you don't need to wait for this to go away of the Log says the repair tool completed.

Thanks

Message was edited by: TWH3

Won't boot, Bluetooth keyboard, now swallowed install disc

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