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Tried to make my old PowermacG5 into a server with my new mac mini through Target Disc Mode and now powermac won't restart. The screen just has a big yellow FireWire symbol on it and that's as far as it gets. Please help, all my work is still on the Power mac and I need to access it!
powermac won't restart.
What did you do?
power off machine for 5 minutes. Restart. Keyboard stuck? Try new keyboard.
If that don't work...
Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."
Sorry rccharles... I'm using a fairly old keyboard – I assume 'Comand' is the Apple Key but which one is the Option key... alt, ctrl or shift ?
So I hold these down along with the O and F keys, is that right?
What I did was on my old Powermac I went to the Apple symbol (top left of screen) System Preferences > Startup Disc > Target Disc Mode... which was then supposed to allow me to use the computer as a hard disc/server through a Firewire or Thunderbolt connection upon restart... but when it rebooted the screen just showed a big yellow Firewire symbol (the one that looks a bit like a 'Y') floating around the screen on a dark blue background and the 2 red led warning lights came on inside the front of the computer near to where the memory ram are housed. At which point I held the power button down and forced it to turned off. This happens now every time I attempt to restart it!
I assumed that this symbol indicated that the computer needed to be connected to the other computer via a Firewire cable before it would boot up – which I did – but problem still persists.
Incidentally, I got these instructions on how to make an old mac into a server from someone on these support communities.
Oh, are you calling target disk mode a server? Target disc mode isn't generally called a server. It's called target disk mode. Before the cloud there were servers.
I never heard of a computer being locked in target disk mode. You have to hold down some key to get your computer into this mode.
I'd try detaching your keyboard then booting. Might as well detach everything you can.
on a pc keyboard.
command is the windows key.
option is the alt key
on a mac keyboard
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
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reset the PMU
Yehey... thanks rccharles... that's sorted it... the resetting of the PRAM – old G5 now back up and running.
Now what's the correct way to connect it to my new Mac mini so that I can use the optical disc drive on the G5 and access files from it... bit like an external hard drive?
Really, external cd-rom drive are cheap ... Neighbor was saying she could get one for $29.
You could try target disk mode if you have another mac around.
http://www.dan-taylor.com/reinstalling-mac-os-x-without-a-dvd-drive-target-disk- mode/
It may be possible to use the optical drive in target disk mode. Do you want to boot another machine from the firewire optical media? Place cd/dvd in reader. attach to other machine. boot in firewire mode. Boot other machine via holding down option key.
Should see what is possible to boot.
That leads to booting g5 in firewire mode. Use disk utility to see if you can see disc in optical drive. Might appear on desktop if disc is in machine. ...
Never tried this.
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The real way of doing this is to set the machine up as a server.
cd/dvd sharing across ethernet.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5287
To share data look into nsf or the sharing panel.
NFS is built into every mac, but no no easy to use panels
I use nfs manager in 10.4.
http://www.bresink.com/osx/LegacyProducts.html
more current version.
Turning old Powermac into a server
