Mac Pro Desktop Tower help

[KompuKare]

I appreciate your hand-holding with me, just trying to learn more about these, inside the case I found more info, it is a g5, weird nothing at all on the outside at all, came from some college. I am struggling to get a linux live cd to boot now. would seem if both drives were bad I should still be able to boot to cd.

If I've been following this thread correctly, that Linux CD will be a PPC one, right?

Surprisingly Ubuntu is still listed here: http://www.livecdlist.com/architecture/ppc

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Yes, trying with the internal drive, no go with the linux either, not seeing the drive in the boot menu, even with the internal hd disconnected. I am just thinking theres more wrong than bad hard drives here.

Yeah, your right it could be something more. But once again with the described symptoms it doesn't seem like it and without a known good bootable device to boot with, there is no way of knowing for sure. Here is an idea, throw a new drive in it an load an OS....Oh wait, no installers to load a system with? Are you getting what I'm saying here?

 

[ell]

Yeah, your right it could be something more. But once again with the described symptoms it doesn't seem like it and without a known good bootable device to boot with, there is no way of knowing for sure. Here is an idea, throw a new drive in it an load an OS....Oh wait, no installers to load a system with? Are you getting what I'm saying here?

LOL, yes pretty much flailing around here! I do have Ubuntu 10.0...its up to bat next! Then I guess I could pull the first drive and pop it into my bench and run a disk utility on it, but I would still like to see if this thing has some other issue.

 

[14049752]

LOL, yes pretty much flailing around here! I do have Ubuntu 10.0...its up to bat next! Then I guess I could pull the first drive and pop it into my bench and run a disk utility on it, but I would still like to see if this thing has some other issue.

Ubuntu 10 won't load. It's intel only, unless you downloaded the community build that supports PPC.

You need something specifically for PPC.

 

[ell]

Well I thought I'd try to boot from a usb drive so I formatted a sata and created a apple partiton map of 11gb and did a restore to it with osx 10.5, also tried a ubuntu ppc cd to boot to, no go with either, nothing recognized when using the option key to boot. I did get this error...

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Well I thought I'd try to boot from a usb drive so I formatted a sata and created a apple partiton map of 11gb and did a restore to it with osx 10.5, also tried a ubuntu ppc cd to boot to, no go with either, nothing recognized when using the option key to boot. I did get this error...

You can only boot through usb with intel Macs. The one you have is a PPC. You'll have to use firewire.

This is getting pointless...

 

[ell]

You can only boot through usb with intel Macs. The one you have is a PPC. You'll have to use firewire.

This is getting pointless...

Yeah, I read about that but I thought I'd try this anyways http://mediacaster.nl/usb_boot_imac_powerpc_g5.html not successful ofcourse, I called my customer and told him to pick it up. N/C I at least need a scratch free osx dvd, I did slave his drives to my mac and it didn't recognize them, wanted to initialize them so I quit, no point without a scratch-free operating dvd. And I can't seems to get anything to boot with the dvd drive. So tell me, what are the rules regarding copyright with Apple, since there are no activation keys involved what do you do when a customer needs a reinstall but has lost or damaged their DVD? Do they buy a new one or can you use another as long as its the same version???

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

So tell me, what are the rules regarding copyright with Apple, since there are no activation keys involved what do you do when a customer needs a reinstall but has lost or damaged their DVD? Do they buy a new one or can you use another as long as its the same version???

You can pretty much use a 10.4 or 10.5 retail version of OSX to install on that machine. Or else the customer can call Apple and Apple may send him the disks for that machine, but considering the age that is a big maybe?

 

[ell]

You can pretty much use a 10.4 or 10.5 retail version of OSX to install on that machine. Or else the customer can call Apple and Apple may send him the disks for that machine, but considering the age that is a big maybe?

So do you resell the disks to them in a case like this? In other words, if I was to use my dvd to reinstall, would I be violating copyright? Yes, I already told him this was a doorstop candidate. It was good education for me, I usually don't do that, but he didn't seem to care much about it.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

In other words, if I was to use my dvd to reinstall, would I be violating copyright?

No, he showed you he had a disk. That's more than good enough in most cases to install whatever version of OSX was on it previously. Other than that if your fixing a machine and the drive is in god enough condition to verify which version of OSX it has, just reinstall the same version.

 

[ell]

No, he showed you he had a disk. That's more than good enough in most cases to install whatever version of OSX was on it previously. Other than that if your fixing a machine and the drive is in god enough condition to verify which version of OSX it has, just reinstall the same version.

thank you for all your help, I may get into mac repair once I feel more confident, you may see me poking around this board again. I'm starting to get alot of calls for mac repair.

 

[Chaucer498]

thank you for all your help, I may get into mac repair once I feel more confident, you may see me poking around this board again. I'm starting to get alot of calls for mac repair.

Honestly, do a search for Peach Pit Press (I think it is) on Google and buy a digital download of the, "Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: A guide to Supporting and troubleshooting Mac OS X Snow Leopard". It's not too expensive.

I have used Macs for years so I am comfortable with them, but this training guide showed me things that I never knew before. It's very easy to read and follow. I guarantee if you give it a good read and follow along with a Mac that you will feel a LOT more comfortable working on macs. I believe the issue you had with the G5 could have been repaired with a tad bit more knowledge. It's a good read regardless because it shows how sophisticated Mac OS X really is. The training guide is a great resource to have on hand. I find myself running to it sometimes to look something up that I know I read in it and could utilize.

Regards

 

[ell]

Thanks! I'm checking it out now.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Honestly, do a search for Peach Pit Press (I think it is) on Google and buy a digital download of the, "Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: A guide to Supporting and troubleshooting Mac OS X Snow Leopard". It's not too expensive.

That series of books is the official study guide to prepare for the Apple Certified Help desk Coordinator or whatever that certification is called nowadays. The OSX exam i need to take each year for the ACMT cert is similar to that exam.

 

[Chaucer498]

That series of books is the official study guide to prepare for the Apple Certified Help desk Coordinator or whatever that certification is called nowadays. The OSX exam i need to take each year for the ACMT cert is similar to that exam.

Correct! It's purpose is to prep techs for the Apple MAC OS X 10.6 Certification.

I found it to be a very informative book on Mac OS X in general. It really does a good job of breaking down the info so it's easy to digest (again I was a Mac user so ymmv). I find that it also serves as a valuable resource to have around when you are troubleshooting issues and need to reference something you may have forgotten. The guide is actually broken down into chapters so that you can easily navigate the guide and drill down to the area or topic you may need refreshing on.

I think if OP gave it a read he would be able to tackle most of the issues he will encounter on Macs (safe mac server issues but there is a training guide for that too!).