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Powermac G5 - ocz Agility 4 ssd won't boot

G5 Power mac - ssd storage upgrade - ssd drive won't boot when blessed.


1. Installed 2 new drives into old G5. Upper slot - 2TB sata hdd, Lower slot - 256GB ssd OCZ Agility 4.

2. Formatted both drives as Mac OS extended (Journalled).

3. 2TB drive partitioned into a 'Data' partition. (~90%) + a 'Backup Boot' partition (~10%)

4. Installed 10.5 onto the ssd.(Named 'System 10.5')

5. Restarted system as part of install.

6. System booted back to installed disc.

7. Went into 'Startup disc'. Selected ssd with 10.5.

8. Restarted system. System still boots to install disc.

7. Installed 10.5 onto 'Backup Boot' partition on 2TB drive.

8. System restarts OK.

9. From 2TB hard drive system. set ssd to startup disc.

10. System restarts to 2TB hdd.

11. Restart system, hold down option, ssd appears. select as boot disc.

12. System boots to ssd, and the welcome animation starts to complete the install.

13. Download the 10.5.8 combo update and install.

14. System doesn't reboot to ssd, but 2tb hdd.


Aware the booting requires a system folder (drive) to be 'blessed', I started poking around the web to verify if the ssd was set for the startup.

Running the command : 'bless -info' returned the following:



finderinfo[0]: 215 => Blessed System Folder is /Volumes/System 10.5/System/Library/CoreServices

finderinfo[1]: 239774 => Blessed System File is /Volumes/System 10.5/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi

finderinfo[2]: 0 => Open-folder linked list empty

finderinfo[3]: 0 => No OS 9 + X blessed 9 folder

finderinfo[4]: 0 => Unused field unset

finderinfo[5]: 215 => OS X blessed folder is /Volumes/System 10.5/System/Library/CoreServices

64-bit VSDB volume id: 0x9FC3EB20743384E4



So the system was 'blessed'. Tried the 'option key' method at startup but still not getting the ssd to appear as a valid boot option.


Looked on the OCZ website which has a Mac OS boot utility for flashing the firmware on the ssd drive BUT the drive is already on the current firmware : 1.5.2


Running out of ideas, short of re-formatting and re-installing the system onto the ssd.


Any ideas of other fixes?


(Feedback really appreciated).

Screengrabs of sata drive profiles attached. (hopefully)


Thanks in advance.


Ps. Ssd drive appears on desktop reads / writes / etc when booting into the hdd.


User uploaded fileUser uploaded file



PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), G5 DP 2.5 5/256GB ssd + 2TB hdd/ATI

Posted on Sep 30, 2012 4:19 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Sep 30, 2012 10:33 AM

Hi Matt,


All those symptoms lead me to think the G5 is having trouble negotiating the SSD down to SATA 1.5 Gb/s until it's further along in it's boot process.


I've seen several of these with SATA II & III Hard Drives, can Install OSX & use it, but not boot from it, if there was another SATA I compliant drive in the G5, & though SATA has no Master/Slave, it seems the compliant drive needed to be in the 1st slot for even that to work.

3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Sep 30, 2012 10:33 AM in response to Matt Mcgregor

Hi Matt,


All those symptoms lead me to think the G5 is having trouble negotiating the SSD down to SATA 1.5 Gb/s until it's further along in it's boot process.


I've seen several of these with SATA II & III Hard Drives, can Install OSX & use it, but not boot from it, if there was another SATA I compliant drive in the G5, & though SATA has no Master/Slave, it seems the compliant drive needed to be in the 1st slot for even that to work.

Oct 1, 2012 2:55 AM in response to BDAqua

THANKS BDAqua FIXED !!


I hadn't installed the ssd into the top slot due to not being able to easily fit the apple rounded hd screws into the mounting tray - hence just letting it sit in the lower position. By working out the holes of the OCZ tray with some other hd screws, I was able to fit the apple hd screws then slot into the top (upper) position & the 2tb drive in the lower position.


Now all working as expected. Thanks again.


Matt.

Powermac G5 - ocz Agility 4 ssd won't boot

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