installing lion on a fresh HDD that was NTFS

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installing lion on a fresh HDD that was NTFS

I got a 2005 Mac pro with no hard drive. I want to install lion via sandisk 16gb USB onto western digital caviar se 80gb sata drive. I have no other macs so I had to prep the USB in windows 7 transmac and that seemed to work by extracting the DMG file and copying it to the USB. I installed the HDD booted and got the ?/folder that blinks, restart and hold alt and I get a refresh arrow and a next arrow, it does not display the HDD or USB in any of the 3 USB ports. I put the HDD back in the windows PC and deleted the NTFS partition and formated it to exfat (for some reason fat32 was not available) and the Mac did not recognize it this way either, I also had tried sata ports a and b both ways it was formatted. Any ideas on how I can get the Mac to properly read the drives?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Apr 15, 2014 8:02 PM

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Answer 1

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BobHarris

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Apr 16, 2014 6:05 AM in response to boss2688

You need to find a friend with a Mac so you can create a bootable disk.

The disk MUST be formatted with a GUID partition map (or it will not be bootable), and the file system MUST have an HFS+ file system on it. You need Mac OS X Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility to do that.

You can also take your Mac into an Apple Store and get assistance from the Genius bar (suggest making an appointment in advance)

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Answer 2

boss2688 Author

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Apr 16, 2014 6:48 AM in response to BobHarris

Well I don't have access to a Mac where I live. The closest apple store is about an hour away but I could go there or best buy mabye. But I thought the transmac program would do all that from windows?

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Answer 3

Apr 16, 2014 6:50 AM in response to boss2688

No. It will not

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Answer 4

boss2688 Author

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Apr 16, 2014 11:35 AM in response to Allan Eckert

ok what about this gparted linux live cd? http://gparted.sourceforge.net/features.php i have seen several posts where people claim to format usb drives to HFS+ with this, but then how would i get the dmg installer on it or should i convert the hdd to hfs+ instead? im just not sure of the steps here and it seems all of them require access to another mac. it cant be this hard to just install osx.

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Answer 5

BobHarris

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Apr 16, 2014 11:46 AM in response to boss2688

I've been thinking about this, and I'm wondering how you got a copy of the Mac OS X installer in a .dmg on a Window's system?

10.6 (Snow Leopard) and below came on DVD's and/or CD discs.

10.7 (Lion), 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and 10.9 (Mavericks) all require the use of the Mac App Store running on a Mac to download.

Just what is it you have in a .dmg file?

The only 2 things I can think of are a Disk Utility backup into a .dmg of a running Mac, OR you downloaded a Mac OS X point update, which can only be installed over top of an existing compatible Mac OS X system.

If you have a Disk Utility backup in a .dmg, then maybe you can use Linux to create a GUID partition table and an HFS+ file system, then using some Linux utility that will retore the .dmg to the disk. HOWEVER, most people answering questions on these forums do have a working Mac (or 2, or 3, ...) and are NOT Linux hardcore users that know how to use gparted and other Linux utilities.

Personally, I would suggest finding someone in your area that has a Mac, and ask if they can help you.

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Answer 6

boss2688 Author

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Apr 16, 2014 1:00 PM in response to BobHarris

i think i found the problem, i was trying to install lion, but everymac.com says this model (A1047 EMC2061) cant upgade beyond 10.5.8 leopard since its a powerpc cpu and not intel. is this accurate?

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Answer 7

BobHarris

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Apr 16, 2014 1:06 PM in response to boss2688

Yes.

Plus the GUID partition map is for intel processors. You need an "Apple Partition Map" for PowerPC based Macs.

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Answer 8

boss2688 Author

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Apr 23, 2014 6:28 PM in response to BobHarris

ok so i scrapped the usb flash drive install idea, bought a 5 pack of dual layer dvds at walmart ($12!) and burnt the 10.5 installer .dmg file to a dvd with poweriso. the mac still does not see the hdd. it is a formatted to HFS+ with transmac but i am not sure if that is the same as what was most recently said by user bobharris:

BobHarris wrote:

Yes.

Plus the GUID partition map is for intel processors. You need an "Apple Partition Map" for PowerPC based Macs.

so if possible is there a way to make my hdd work with this apple partition map? or should i just take the machine into the apple store (i dont really want to do this if you cant tell)

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Answer 9

BobHarris

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Apr 23, 2014 6:40 PM in response to boss2688

If you really have a model A1047 Mac, then it is an IBM PowerPC G5 CPU, which would make it a Apple PowerMac G5 system. A PowerMac G5 CANNOT install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Lion is for intel processors ONLY.

The most recent operating system a PowerMac G5 can install is Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8. You would need to get the installation DVD from someplace such as Amazon or eBay.

You can contact Apple and give them your serial number and they will send you the original operating system version DVD's for a shipping and handling fee, but it will be whatever version of Mac OS X shipped with that PowerMac G5 originally.

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Answer 10

boss2688 Author

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Apr 23, 2014 6:45 PM in response to BobHarris

i have a dvd with 10.5.8 on a dual layer disk. we already went over that before because i originally wanted 10.7.2 but then i found out this model is a power pc and not an intel CPU. the 10.5.8 dvd is not the issue in my opinion, i am sure there is a way to format a hdd to this "apple partition map" from windows, which is my current road block.

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