ARG! G4 wont boot.. think the FW HD died!

[TwitchOSX]

So.. I have 10.4 installed on a FW HD connected to our older G4. I turn it on and all I get is a grey screen on boot. I reboot holding option-command-shift-delete or something like that and it boots into OS 9 on the internal HD. There, I try to go to control panel - startup disk and it doesnt even see the FW HD.

The FW HD is turned on.. but its making a funky noise and I dont know if its the HD thats messed up or the FW Case. I am thinking I could probably take the HD out of the FW case and put it into the G4.. or our G5 and see if the computer recognizes it. What do you think? Anything else I can try? Thanks.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Do you have any other computers you could plug the FW drive into? Just to make sure that it is unreadable.

It does sound like the HD is hosed. But as a final step, it would probably be worth taking the HD out and mounting it to your G4, just in case it's the enclosure and not the HD, so you can recover your data.

 

[TwitchOSX]

Yes

I do have another computer.. this G5 that I am on. I was thinking about just plugging it into this computer.. I can do that "hot" right? As in.. I dont need to turn the G5 off before plugging the FW HD into this computer.

If that doesnt work, I think I will just yank the HD out of the FW enclosure and put it directly INTO the G4 and see what happens. I hope the drive isnt hosed.. thats got our back-ups on it.. and I have never had a HD go bad on me.. so this would be a first. Grr.. Thanks for the info.

 

[TwitchOSX]

Ok.. I turned off the FW HD.. plugged it into the G5 and then turned on the FW HD.. I get nothing. Im taking it out of the case and putting it INTO the G5..

 

[dpaanlka]

Wait before you do that, plug it back into the G5 and run Disk Utility and see if it even sees it. Maybe something can be repaired?

 

[yellow]

Ok.. I turned off the FW HD.. plugged it into the G5 and then turned on the FW HD.. I get nothing. Im taking it out of the case and putting it INTO the G5..

You can't do that.. your G5 has SerialATA (SATA), and I'm guessing that your firewire enclosure does not.

As dpaanlka posted, you should 1) try Disk Utility to see if it can see/repair the drive, and 2) check System Profiler to see if it even registers the FW device (should #1 fail).

 

[TwitchOSX]

Wait.. I cant put a regular HD into a G5 tower? Its a DP 2.5 G5.. wtf?

 

[yellow]

Wait.. I cant put a regular HD into a G5 tower? Its a DP 2.5 G5.. wtf?

No. Not without a 3rd party ATA card. By default it only has a SATA bus.
SATA being modern and fast, (P)ATA being old, 'slow' tech.

 

[dpaanlka]

Wait.. I cant put a regular HD into a G5 tower?

Yes... a regular SATA hard drive. ATA is now obsolete, and has been for some years on pro-Macs.

 

[TwitchOSX]

Ah Ha!

I got it back. After I took the HD out and removed the jumpers so it would be set to slave.. I took your advise and put it back in in the hopes that I could run disk first aid to try to see it. I plugged it back in and hit the power switch and it shows up now on the G5 just fine (without disk first aid)... so.. because I am having issues.. what should I do now? I have 2 HD's in our G4.. one is the old one that came with the computer with OS 9 and all its crap on it.. and the other is a HD we bought to put our clipart collection on so I dont have to refer to CD's. The clipart one I dont need anymore since I have our entire clip art collection on the internal drive of the new production machine (G5). I'm thinking I should just put the drive thats in the FW enclosure into the G4 and take the clipart one out. However.. the FW enclosure is making a funky noise.. (I think its the fan).. but maybe I can buy a new FW enclosure.