Older iMac G5 won't start up some times

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Level 1

5 points

Older iMac G5 won't start up some times

I have an iMac PowerPC G5 that I transplanted from my office when I upgraded last year. 1.8 GHz, 2 GB DDR, OS 10.4.11 with 115.71 GB available on the drive. We use it as a print server - hooked up via ethernet to an Airport Express - as well as various school work for the kids like internet research and Word. Lately it has started having startup issues. The center of the screen has a multi-colored box or the spinning wheel spins, forever. Once, a screen message came up advising me to shut down by holding the on button. When I restart it works fine. I have used disk utility several times - not much to repair. Is this a deeper issue?

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 28, 2012 6:10 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 28, 2012 5:04 PM in response to Ski2B

Hi.

Given the age of the machine and assuming that is the original hard disk drive, I would suspect the drive is beginning to fail, perhaps developing bad sectors that the machine is having trouble reading/writing.

If you have access to another drive, a FireWire external would do well, try installing a fresh copy of the OS on that. Then select that as your boot drive and see how things go.

In any event, I would backup any important data that currently resides on the internal drive before it completely fails.

I hope this is helpful.

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Answer 2

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Aug 29, 2012 5:46 AM in response to Ski2B

iMac G5: Fails to startup

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2173?viewlocale=en_US

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Answer 3

Ski2B Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 31, 2012 6:54 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks. I think you are right. I found my discs and booted from the Hardware Check disc. The Mass Storage did not pass, error code 2 STF/8/3:S-ATA Bus0-Master. So I guess you are correct that the drive is going.

I have a second iMac and it did pass the Hardware test completely. I think I need to reinstall the software thought. It starts up a bit slowly, loads the OS, but then every mouse click induces the spinning color wheel for 10, 15 sometimes 30 minutes. I couldn't even run the Disc utility. I was able to load the Hardqwre disc and restart and I only had to sit there holding the C key for about 15 minutes. The test took about 40 minutes, probably because I have max ram installed. These computers weere used for CAD drawing.

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