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I know what the flashing ? Means and how to fix it once I can get in. My problem is that I thought that I could get to disk utilities through the install disk. Once I put the disk in, nothing happened and I cannot eject the disk now. I don't even hear the optical drive working. Oh, this is my 24" G5 iMac. Suggestions please.
24" and 20" G5 imac., Mac OS X (10.6.5), AP Express, iTouch 4G
Normally you could eject it if you try to boot with the mouse key down. But if it isn't actually running then you may have a problem with a failed dvd drive.
If you have a bootable backup on an external drive you could boot from that to run DU from there. Doesn't fix the drive problem but it may fix your boot problem (...or not).
So why don't you reboot holding the Shift key down, get into OS X and eject the disk from there?
You shold be able to reboot the machine with the trackpad or left wired mouse button held down to eject the disk.
drutil eject
can also be entered into Terminal to eject a stuck disk
I tried all of your suggestion with no luck. When I boot up, all I get is a white screen for a couple of minute, then the flashing ? Comes up. I can hear the internal HD kicking in, but then it stops. I have a bootable external HD, would I be able to use that as a temp solution?
Since none of the suggestions worked, I am assuming that my HD went bad. So I have two questions to ask:
1) I do have a bootable external HD as a back up. Can I boot that up and use it as a temp HD?
2) I have an older G4 iMac and the internal HD is good, but there are other problems and it won't come on when I try to power it up. How can I tell if I can use the HD in my G5? I have changed a HD in a MacBook, so I feel comfortable trying to change it on the G5.
Funds are short so I am trying to get around to having to buy anything right now
Thanks!
1) Yes
2) Life would be easier if you had another empty external enclosure. You could put the HDD in it and then clone to it to test it. But since you only have the macbook, put it in there and boot from the external you do have and see if you can clone your external boot drive back to the hdd you just inserted into the macbook. If you can, see if you can then boot from the new internal.
Thanks. For now,so I can at least get some work none, what is the proper way to boot up the external HHD?
You can boot with the option key pressed immediately after the boot chime to get the display of boot drive options. Use left/right arrow keys to navigate and return to select. I suppose in your case there will initially only be the one drive.
Once booted you could change the Startup Disk system preferences to always default to that external drive. Then you won't have to press option each time.
I had the chime sound turned off, so it's a shot in the dark as to when I hold the option key down. No luck so far.
Flashing ? & stuck DVD
