One of my hobbies includes restoring old PC. Recently my friend gave me a PowerMac G5 that he though was broken. To our amazement it still worked. I downloaded a copy of lbuntu for PowerPC and put it on a USB drive. I stuck an old 500GB HDD of mine in the PC (I tested it and it still works). I held down things like the Windows Key and Alt Key (Don't have a mac keyboard) and even all of the F buttons. But For what ever reason all it wants to do is give me the flashing folder with a question mark icon (assuming that means I have to reinstall the OS). I have yet to try a CD drive as the only CD Drives I have are external(USB) and the one built into the G5 I can't get it to eject (no buttons, tried holding down F12) so I can't stick a cd in there. I looked inside everything is still plugged in. The USB ports are drawing power as when I plug a keyboard into it the 3 lights flash. I don't have any firewire devices on me since I'm a windows kind of guy. So I'm stumped. Any ideas on how to install the OS on there. Considering its PowerPC I don't think installing it from something like VMware would do any good. (Don't even have an external HDD mount)
Power Mac G5 Install Disc Download
start up hold down command+option+p+r to reset ram. Reset and hold down shift this is safe mode for macs. also try command+s. Command + D boots the service disc and you may need to download it from some where its called a OSX Service DVD. If these dont help try using Disk Warrior it usually will fix these issues if its not hardware failure. You can always just re install the OS as well.
Just remember when your installing Linux onto a powerpc its going to be limited to running ports of all software. I wasn't able to do a whole lot. Basic server functions but example no virtualbox etc.
To create an external OS X Recovery, download the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.
Your unit came with Panther (10.3). You can get a copy of the original Grey disk from Apple for about $15. If you want Tiger you need to buy a Retail copy (Black) to do the install. Apple has not had a downloadable OS since OS-9. You could probably find a illegal copy online but most people find problems with such downloads including trojans and other malware.
Probably the medium you have inserted is not bootable by your computer. You can use an USB drive for the reinstallation of Mac OS 10.4 . However, if I recall right, iMac G5 is capable of running 10.5 Leopard as well. It doesn't really matter. I am gonna continue this answer with the assumption of you have a disk image of either 10.4 or 10.5, as well as your mac is currently working or you have access to another mac; since you have mentioned you downloaded the disk image in question itself.
2) Secondly, press and hold the C key on your keyboard immediately upon hearing the startup chime. Your Mac should start up from the macOS installer CD/DVD media. You can also press the left mouse button on a wired mouse during startup to open the disc tray.
If your Mac has a SuperDrive or Disc drive, you can boot the Mac from any bootable DVD or CD by using a special keyboard shortcut. The bootable disc can be an OS X system restore disc, an OS X installation disc, or even a third party OS disc like Linux.
Sometimes dust or dirt on a CD or DVD can interfere with an installation and prevent your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive from recognizing the media. Examine the application CD or DVD for dirt, dust, or fingerprints. Gently wipe the bottom of the disc from the center outward with a soft, lint-free cloth.
Once you have downloaded your new driver, you'll need to install it. In Windows, use a built-in utility called Device Manager, which allows you to see all of the devices recognized by your system, and the drivers associated with them.
Below you will find instructions on how to boot and install MorphOS 3.17. In order to download the time-limited demo version, please go to this page. If you would like to learn more about what hardware is compatible with MorphOS 3.17, please visit our hardware compatibility section.
Click the "Burn" icon within Disk Utility. Navigate the browser window that appears and select the disk image you downloaded from the Linux developer website. Insert a blank DVD disc into your iMac G5 when prompted. Click the "Burn" button to initiate the process. It may take over an hour to complete the burn.
Shut down your iMac. Insert the burned disc into the G5's disc slot on the right side of the computer. Hold down the "C" key while the computer starts up. This forces the Mac to run off the Linux operating system hosted on the disc. Select the new hard-drive partition you created when the program asked where you'd like to install the new operating system. Click the "Install" button to initiate the process. The computer restarts after installation boots up with the Linux OS.
Debian started support for PowerPC (32-bit) in Debian 2.2 (Potato) and dropped the support in Debian 8. The last official support release for the 32-bit PowerPC is with Debian 8 (Jessie). This is why people usually install Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) and Debian 7 (Wheezy) in their PowerPC machines. Such releases are suitable for powerful PowerPC machines.
The Fienix disk image can be downloaded from the website. The distribution comes with its repository that allows you to choose the installation. You can connect to the repository and download anything using Synaptic.
Wait, I'm confused. I've never had trouble installing Leopard on a PPC Mac that didn't have a Dual Layer SuperDrive, or even a Mac only containing a Combo Drive. A modern SuperDrive is only required for burning Dual Layer discs. Any drive that can read DVDs can read one with multiple layers.---- Ben RosenthalMacBook Pro 2.8GHz - Snow Leopard
This saved my day!! I have a late-model 1.67GHz Powerbook which was ruined beyond Disk Utility's reach, due to a frozen OS update that forced me to power down. I have no Firewire drives, Time Machine backup, blank DVDs, etc. All I had was a Leopard DMG sitting on my windows box and a 8GB USB drive laying around. I was successfully able to use this method to restore my computer and sanity!Here are some tidbits from my experience:-The USB had to be formatted as MACOS Extended, not Journaled. Otherwise, I only had 6.4GB usable space for a 6.7GB DMG file.-The restore step took about 20min for me, as did the OS installation (trimmed of language and printer driver options)-For me, the location of the bootable USB was /pci@f2000000/usb@15,1/disk@1. I mention this because the ",1" was easy to miss on my machine and was needed.-The BootX location provided in this post was spot-on for my 10.5.6 image.I can't thank you enough for the time and hassle you saved me! Also, it was fun using OF mode for the second time.
I am a PC guy for many many years but a complete Mac n00b. I got a G5 iMac from my brother-in law that had puked the hard drive. Of course, he had lost the install DVD in a flood this summer. Arg.I obtained a disk image of the Leopard DVD, but experienced much frustration as the drive does not read dual layer DVD. I tried a pared-down disk image on DVD-R, but no luck there. It just hung at the Apple and pinwheel.Ultimately, my solution also involved another Mac. I popped a new 500 GB SATA hard drive into a USB enclosure, connected to my Windows box, and placed the .dmg on it. I connected it to the Mac Mini, and copied the file to the desktop. From there, I just wiped the SATA drive using Disk Utility, and created two APM-formatted partitions- one 20GB to hold the image and leave some extra space, and another one using the rest of the disk. From Disk Utility, I verified and then used Restore to copy the image to the 20 GB partition. Since my G5 does not have the camera, removing the back to swap the hard drive was a cinch. At first it would not read it at all, and I then discovered that I needed to jumper the SATA drive to 1.5 GBps. Once I did that, I booted using the Option key, selected the image partition, and installed to larger partition. Bang! For someone who has the very last iMac G5 with the camera, disassembly is more of an impediment. But getting to the guts of the earlier model could not be easier. Three screws on the lower edge of the unit and the back comes right off. If you have one of these this method is a slam dunk.
hey guys!!!! after a few tries, I FOUND A SOLUTION. my powermac G5 is now on the nice 10.5.6 :)))HERE'S A GUIDE FOR ALL THOSE OF YOU, WHO ARE STILL STUCK WITH THE GUIDE ABOVE:1. if you are completly new and have no torrent downloader, download vuze. its a nice, small, free torrent downloader and it works :)2. after that, you have to download the iso file. i chose the one on www.picktorrent.com/download/b7/173126/mac-os-x-leopard-10.5.6-full-retail/it should work...if everything is done, a folder "vuze downloads" should appear on documents. open it and go to mac os x install dvd. inside should be a dmg file.3. plug your USB stick (8GB, better more) into the computer. the file system should be set to MAC OS X EXTENDED (NOT journaled) 4. follow the guide above from step 3 til step 8.5. you're now in open firmware. type in dev / ls and a list with all files will appear. press space to scroll down. now, you have a tree structure, you have to choose the leftest and go to right and bottom, till you reach /usb@b/disk@2(it don't have to be exactly like that)then write down the whole path(in my case ht@0,f2000000/pci@8/usb@b/disk@2)6. write devalias into the command prompt. it should appear a list. you have to search the USB. (in my case USB2,USB3,USB1a,USB1b,USB1c) then I guessed that it would be USB2. my choice was the right, if your one isn't the right it will nothing happen in step 7.7. type dir (name_found_in_step_6)/(disk_name_found_in_step_5) :(partition_number_found_in_step_7_of_the_guide_above),\System\Library\CoreServices (in my case dir usb2/disk@2:10,\System\Library\CoreServices)8. now a list should appear with the programs inside this folder. if a program with the name BootX and the atribute tbxi is there, you're almost done. type in boot (name_found_in_step_6)/(disk_name_found_in_step_5) :(partition_number_found_in_step_7_of_the_guide_above),\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX9. press enter. the installation should now begin.10. ENJOY YOUR FREE LEOPARD!!!!! :Dso it worked for me. i hope for you, too and for questions just ask me: fritzmeier83@gmail.com(PS: sorry for my bad english, i'm from switzerland :) 2ff7e9595c
Comments