Mac Powermac G4 AGP will not boot, can I take the drive and boot using a firewire enclosure on another G5?

May 26, 2008 9:38 AM

Mac Powermac G4 AGP will not boot, can I take the drive and boot using a firewire enclosure on another G5?

I've tried replacing the CMOS battery and resetting the PMU which didn't work. I really need to boot from this drive to use the files immediately, then take the data off afterwards.

Can I boot with this drive in a firewire enclosure using a G5, or does it have to be another similar G4 system? would a powerbook g4 work too?

posted by safepants to technology (6 comments total)

If the drive still works and the file system is readable, and you don't need to boot of it, just access the files, then it doesn't really matter what machine you put it in - an external enclosure with usb or firewire will work fine.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:59 AM on May 26

It depends on what OS was installed on the G4. If the OS on the G4 was released *after* the G5, then it should boot just fine. Otherwise the best you can hope for is to install the G4's hard drive in an external enclosure or into the G5 itself and pull the files off.
posted by nathan_teske at 10:01 AM on May 26

I've had a few G4s which did this. Does the power light glow when you press it? And do the fans come on?

Bizarrely, using a different power cable usually fixed the problem. Might be worth a try
posted by derbs at 10:06 AM on May 26

Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm going to put it in an enclosure first to save the data then I'll try booting it with another Mac.

The G4 has Tiger installed on it, so i hope the G5 can boot it, I'll report back when i try this.

I'll see if there's another power cable at work to try.
The powerlight does light up for a brief moment. I don't think the Fans spin up at all.
A usb drive that is attached does light up as well when i hit the power button.
posted by safepants at 11:06 AM on May 26

are you sure you reset the PMU successfully? that kinda sounds like you didn't - i've had machines that did that exactly and were fixed by a PMU reset. make sure it's unplugged when you do it.

if the G4 was up to date on Tiger (10.4.11) it should boot a G5 with no problems. if it wasn't, hook the drive up to the G5 and just access the files - depending on how behind you are on updates, you may be running a copy of the OS that's too old to boot the G5, but you'll still be able to get to everything.
posted by mrg at 7:29 PM on May 26

ya I followed Apple's instructions and the PMU didn't fix it. There must be a dead piece of hardware somewhere.

I cloned the drive using Disk Utility and put it on a firewire drive (i saw intel macs can boot from usb now, PPC is firewire only) booted successfully from it on a G5 dual. This will work in the short term for me just fine. Now to decide if i want to get a mac mini to replace that dead G4.
Macromedia Director 2004 MX asked me to re-activate but still worked fine after that.

thanks all for helping.
posted by safepants at 12:00 PM on May 28