G5 Freezes on Boot

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Level 1

8 points

G5 Freezes on Boot

My G5 (A1047, mid-2003, 10.5) is having booting issues - when I try to boot normally it freezes on the grey boot screen. The fans go crazy, and the machine sounds like a freight train. When I attempt to boot into safe mode, I can get into the login screen, but it freezes when I try to input text to the password field (fans go crazy at this point). I tried repairing the disk in single-user using fsck, to no avail.

I have been able to boot from the recovery disk (oddly, the fans behave normally when I do). I attempted repairing permissions with disk utility, but it the system just hangs (I let it sit for ~1hr, so I promise I wasn't being impatient), and I'm forced to restart. I thought it might be an issue with a corrupt file system or OSX install, so I tried reinstalling OSX, but I got kernal panics during every attempt.

Any ideas what the issue might be? My main suspects are HDD or video card, however I have no extras of either, so I can't test my theory easily. I've reset the PRAM and PMU, so I don't believe it's those either.

Posted on Apr 26, 2016 6:04 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Apr 26, 2016 11:47 AM in response to Spacehams

I have been able to boot from the recovery disk (oddly, the fans behave normally when I do).

Can you be a bit more detailed on this part?

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Answer 2

Spacehams Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 26, 2016 1:11 PM in response to BDAqua

Sure! I can insert the recovery disk that came with the G5 and hold C on startup to get to the OSX install. I'm able to select a drive to install to, if I want to archive or erase, and the miscellaneous install options. A few minutes into the installation, it will give me a kernal panic. The fans don't go full bore when I'm in the recovery screen or during the install attempt.

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