I was given a powermac g4 with no Hard drive, I purchased one and installed it there is no OS system installed I purchased a set that the computer had came with But cannot get it to boot from the disc. What do I do?
PowerMac, PowerMac G4
What are you doing to boot from the disc? Did you try this. From where did you purchase the discs? Do you know exactly which model you have?
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple
logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
I did try the C button trick, I am not sure on the model where this is what I was told about the system I was give. It is a PowerMac G4 1.5GB's PC-133 RAM, Works, needs hard drive, Supports up to OSx 10.4.11 "Tiger". So I got a new Hard drive that I researched and said it would work on this computer. and ordered the Mac OSX Tiger version 10.4
But where did the Tiger discs come from? What do they look like and what is printed on the labels.
I cannot find a G4 PB model that uses PC-133 RAM and also takes up to 1.5 GBs. The info I have says a max of 1 GB. Do you know the processor speed?
Even assuming the discs are OK, do you know if the optical drive is working?
The tiger disc's I baught off amazon and I checked the disc's for any visible damage and they are in good condition. they came in the original packaging with the books. the image on the disc itself is its black with a siver/grey X with an apple logo above it with "Mac OS X Tiger includes Xcode2 install DVD" to the left of the X and the copyrite info on the right side of the X.
I dont know for sure if the disc drive works.
I was wondering If I took the Hard drive out and connected a USB adapter to it (making it an External drive conect it to a Newer Mac running Mavric can i then install the disc to the drive that way then re connect it internally to this computer?
This is the information printed on the back of the tower.... (Power Mac G4, Model number: M5183)
Well, those sound like proper retail discs.
I don't think removing the drive plan will work because your computer can not be booted from those discs. What you could do is get an external optical drive if you can find one in an enclosure that supports Firewire. Can't use USB because those models cannot boot from a USB drive.
Hold on, now. I just read your last sentence. I thought this was a PowerBook, not a PowerMac. I misread your original post. OK, that model designation belongs to a PM G4 with AGP graphics. It uses this memory:
| Maximum Memory | 2.0 GB under Mac OS X, 1.5 GB under Mac OS 8/9 |
|---|---|
| Memory Slots | 4 - PC-100 3.3v, unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM |
| Minimum Speed | 125 MHz (8 ns) |
Note that it uses PC-100, not PC-133 RAM. The optical drive bay supports
| Optical Drive Interface | EIDE (ATA-3) |
|---|
They came with optional optical drives:
| Media | 32x CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM |
|---|
If it's internal optical drive happens to be CD-ROM and those Tiger discs you have are DVDs, then they will never work until the optical drive is replaced.
I apologize for my mix up on this.
No problem about the mixup, So how can I tell if the Disc drive is bad without purchasing another drive?
with the miss unerstanding about the system would my idea work? I was thinking if I can get the OS installed and get the computer running I can then test the cd drive.
If not the what type of external optical drive would I look for that this older system would handle?
First, can you tell by looking at the Tiger package or on the label of the discs whether you have CDs or DVDs.
I have no idea how to tell if the one you have is a CD or DVD drive. If it's possible to find some kind of model identifier on the drive itself then we can try to find out from that.
I checked with Everymac.com and it would appear that if you have the 400 MHz model then it came standard with a CD-ROM drive. The others with the faster processors came standard with a DVD drive. This is the best information I could locate.
The disc says DVD and the label on the back of the tower says it came with a cd-rw so that explains the install issue.
wich brings me to the idea I had and then I can add an external dvd after the fact possibly. But My question is if I try to install them using a newer mac with a dvd drive set to install tiger onto my external drive via USB then once the install is compleate re install the hard drive inside this tower will it then see there is an os system on the hard drive?
If not how else would i install an OS system on this?
In order to boot from another computer you have to be able to boot that computer from those Tiger DVDs. That is not possible with any Intel Mac, so you need another G4 computer capable of being started from those DVDs. Then you could use Target Disk Mode (if supported. Not sure I remember if that's possible.) Probably, the best alternative would be to replace the CD-ROM with a DVD drive like the one that was used with other versions of that model. The drive would need to be a single-layer drive. The old G4 hardware did not support dual-layer drives.
You can check out Ifixit and OWC for compatible bare optical drives. This could be the cheapest option since bare optical drives are not expensive.
Ok Thank you I Dont see any single layer drives on that site for my PowerMac G4 They show duel layer saying that they will work but I wont buy it without knowing for sure.
The other option i concidered is I have an 8GB thumb drive I read i could copy the disc to the thumb drive and boot the system that way all I would have to do is format the thumb drive to a bootable format. Is this possible with My mac or is it too old for that option?
That won't work either. The old PPC machines won't boot from USB. Only from Firewire so that would require using an external Firewire drive.
Ok thank you I found one Hard drive DVD-RAM Drive IDE 3.5" for Power Mac G3 & G4 661-2162 but it says I need a decoder card. is this true?
Your discs are 5". They won't fit into a 3.5" drive. You need a plain old 5" optical drive that can handle standard DVDs. Email OWC and iFixit tech support and see if they have one they will recommend for your model. You may also have success searching Google or Amazon or eBay.
Installing OS Tiger to new Hard drive.
