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Level 1

43 points

PowerMac G5 not seeing boot drive

Just got back from a few days away, and on my return my PowerMac G5 is no longer seeing its boot drive.

I tried rebooting from the instal DVD and running Apple Hardware Test, but it gives everything a tick and comes up with...

Default boot device: Hard Drive:

Serial-ATA bus: 0, ID: 0

Not sure whether this means it likes it, or it's not seeing the drive at all...

The drive never appears on the desktop, and if I start up holding Alt to select the startup drive, it doesn't appear as an option.

Have had a look inside, and made sure the drive connectors are in place - they seem fine - what's my next move?

G5 PPC Dual 2.3, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2.5 GB DDR SDRAM

Posted on Nov 22, 2012 4:42 AM

17 replies

Level 1

43 points

Heh... as well as having no hard drive, I now have no internet connection at my flat!

Anyhow, I checked the voltages across the Molex pins, and they were as you said - just over 5V on one side, and just over 12V on the other.

So in short, the IDE/ATA Bus seems to be working fine with normal power, but nothing I put on the Serial-ATA Bus is even seen by the system...

OK, power supply probably not the issue then.

Do an SMC Reset and try to do a PRAM Reset.

PowerMac G5 not seeing boot drive