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G4 eMac Desktop Disappearance !

Firstly apologies to Mods if thread placed in wrong area: don't know if problem is OS X or the hardware itself. Please move as you see fit.

Computer is a very, very lightly used g4 emac, 1.42ghz, 2 gb ram. HD has 25gb of free space from 79gb. OS X 10.4.11

Last week my personal desktop froze on a few occasions requiring hard shutdown/restart - never seen this before. Whilst it was working I verified and repaired disk and disk permissions just be to be safe. Passed.

Turned on the following day to have no desktop; just a light blue screen with a movable cursor. No menu. Nothing to select. No 'BONGS', No unusual HD sounds, no rattling or complaining - just pale blue screen.

Shut down and restarted in 'safe' mode' - all is fine; eMac works fine albeit with the normal 'safe' mode limitations:

Q. where has my desktop gone, how do I access it again, will what's happened to my personal desktop also happen to 'safe' mode ?

Much reading later......things I have done:

Start up from OS X Tiger DVD> Disk Utilities> repair and verify both disk and permissions again> some fixes required and effected> PASSED.

Still can't boot to personal desktop.

Acquired use of external HD and Macbook Pro core i7 with intention of putting Tiger OS X on external drive to boot test eMac and perhaps clone off existing eMac material before wipe and fresh OS install.
Have erased and partitioned Touro EHD on both eMac and Macbook Pro, setting as 1 Partition and Apple Partition Map then using OS X DVD tried to load on to Touro. Won't do it - puts up error message saying OS X is 4.7gb and there's not enough free space on selected external drive. There's 499gb free !

I don't know how much longer eMac will last and I no longer know what to do for the best - I'm a week older and no further on........

Any help would be massively appreciated. Thankyou.

macludite

G4 eMac-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 1.42GHz 2GB RAM 80GB Superdrive

Posted on Jan 26, 2016 2:24 PM

47 replies

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 2, 2016 9:00 PM in response to Julian Barrett

Target mode should be great for transferring to tje 4.42 GHz eMac you scored too! 🙂

Feb 3, 2016 5:01 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua - as ever I'm indebted to you 🙂

SITREP: my trusty g4 eMac 1.42GHz only has the black screen now 😟

Clearly time for some lateral thinking to achieve Target Disk Mode since I can't see what I'm doing !

Thanks so much for the IntelMac guidance - I shall search according to it but for now if I can manage one eMac to another eMac I'll have bought myself some time.

macludite

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 3, 2016 11:31 PM in response to Julian Barrett

Well, you'll just have to boot your old eMac holding t key & hope that a bit later it shows up as a FW Hard Drive on your newer eMac. 🙂

Feb 3, 2016 11:03 AM in response to BDAqua

Thankyou.

Dare I ask: "…and if it doesn't show up on new eMac desktop ?"

Q: Is the Rosetta that will allow me to use most of my ppc applications exclusive to 10.6.1 OS or can I look for macs that shipped with 10.5 too ?

macludite

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 3, 2016 11:56 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Ah, great questions, Rosetta should be available on any IntelMac running 10.4.4 trough 10.6.8

Classic, Rosetta, and 32/64 bit revisited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_%28software%29

Dare I ask: "…and if it doesn't show up on new eMac desktop ?"

Well, let's hope it does, otherwise we'd have to pull the drive out, not easy, & use something like this...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-S-ATA-2-5-3-5-Hard-Drive-HD-HDD-Conv erter-Adapter-Cable-New-/331250999094

Feb 3, 2016 11:49 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua - thanks once again.

Looks like I'll be needing some luck when I collect eMac 1.42GHz on saturday….

Re: shopping for Intel iMac: anything between 7,1 and 10,1; either models that shipped with OS 10.6.1 or ones that could be upgraded to it with original disks including those shipped with Tiger and Leopard. I think I've got that right ?

macludite

MlchaelLAX

Level 4

2,286 points

Feb 4, 2016 8:32 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Julian Barrett wrote:

SITREP: my trusty g4 eMac 1.42GHz only has the black screen now

Clearly time for some lateral thinking to achieve Target Disk Mode since I can't see what I'm doing !

Some years ago, I was given a Mac Mini 1,1 that could not output any video.

I booted it into Target mode and used another Mac Mini through Firewire to access its hard drive. I then used Startup Manager on the fully functioning Mac Mini to restart using the Mac Mini 1,1's hard drive and set it up to work with screen sharing and file sharing (with a fixed IP address) and shut both down and disconnected the firewire cable.

I then was able to reboot the Mac Mini 1,1 and access it using Screen Sharing when I need it.

These were known as "headless" Mac Mini's but in this case, that was my only option, since the video circuitry was defunct!

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 4, 2016 9:56 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Yes, iMac 7,1 would be the lowest I'd recommend, but actually on the upper end iMac 12.,2 would work, if it indeed includes the original 10.6.6 or updated 10.6.8...

OS X versions and builds included with Mac computers - Apple Support

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i7-3.4-27-inch-alumin um-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html

Sadly many people will think they're doing you a favor including or upgrading to the latest OSX, so do ask. 🙂

Feb 4, 2016 11:39 AM in response to BDAqua

MichaelLAX - welcome to my three week meltdown and thanks for the tip 😉

BDAqua - thank you once again for the clarity; seems I can search for much newer Intel iMacs than I thought 🙂

…..more on Target Mode success/failure coming soon…..

macludite

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 8, 2016 1:31 PM in response to Julian Barrett

So, hows it going?

Feb 10, 2016 3:52 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua - thanks for the follow up; I've been away for the last 4 days so here's the current situation:

g4 eMac 1.42GHz with 150gb HD now in my possession 🙂 so that's a start !

thought I'd go over it today; give it some 'housekeeping' and prepare it for the hope that I can do Target Disk tomorrow.

Q: What's my best move here please, erase everything from existing drive and do a fresh Tiger install from my black OS X DVD - that would seem like a sensible precaution?

Many thanks for the continued interest and support…...

macludite

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 10, 2016 11:13 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Perhaps sensible yes, but I personally wouldn't worry that much about it, I'd put the old one in Target mode, boot the new one holding alt key & hopefully able to choose booting off the old eMac's HDD on the new eMac, then maybe clone the old running OSX to the new drive. 🙂

Feb 13, 2016 7:33 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua - Thank you - I noted your comments and am back with the up-to-date…..

Both eMacs have been connected via Firewire; the working one as 'host', the screenless one as 'target'; target DOES show on host desktop - happy, happy days 🙂. Next I started up host with 'alt' key to see if it could boot the target machine's HD so that it would appear on host desktop - it does 🙂.

Then I shut down and went to learn about Migration Assistant [MA] because that would allow me to pull everything, preferences/settings included across to the host's HD. Couldn't use MA, couldn't get to a point of selecting which disk etc without the Admin password for the replacement machine, which of course I do not have 😟.

Installed original Tiger OS X DVD in host to change Admin pw so now I can use MA 🙂.

Before I do The Great Transfer, should I partition the host machines HD or indeed do anything else that might be sensible please ?

Thank you so much for sticking with me throughout all this……and of course it bears repeating that your hunch about the problem not being the hard drive was entirely correct; evidently it is the video component on the main board - never a substitute for experience and wisdom eh 😉

macludite

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 13, 2016 10:50 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Well, pretty good news so far! 😀

Here's what I'd do, boot from the old eMac's HDD using alt key, get the old CCC version at the bottom of this page...

https://bombich.com/download

Download CCC 3.4.7 for use on Tiger and Leopard. CCC 3.4.7 is provided as-is; we regret that we cannot offer any support for the installation or use of this version of CCC.

Then clone the old drive you're booted from on the old eMac to the newer eMac, when done try the alt boot again & choose the newer eMac's drive for a test.

Of course if you want I can show you how to make a new Admin account on the new one. 🙂

BDAqua

Level 10

239,285 points

Feb 13, 2016 10:57 AM in response to Julian Barrett

Oh, just reread your post, if you already created a new user on the new eMac, I'd still do the cloning, MA is best used at very first step on booting after install & before making a user, of course MA will still work after, but you'll have a second user you'll need to log into.

G4 eMac Desktop Disappearance !