New to Mac...can someone help?
I got the PowerMac G4 (I think it is a digital audio) for free from a friend who was throwing it out. I do not know ANYTHING about Macs so I am flying by the seat of my pants here. The computer had i assume some sort of hard drive failure in the master hard drive it looks like so it is not recognizing any OS. I am trying to boot from a cd to get Mac OS 9.1 or Tiger to load but using a standard non-Mac USB keyboard and it doesn't seem to be working.
I keep getting the grey screen with the folder with the two faces and question mark flashing alternating. I am holding down C and starting it to boot from cd. It starts like it is going to read the cd then it spits out any disk I put in.
Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated!
I keep getting the grey screen with the folder with the two faces and question mark flashing alternating. I am holding down C and starting it to boot from cd. It starts like it is going to read the cd then it spits out any disk I put in.
Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated!
Comments
It's possible that the powermac just doesn't like the keyboard, so it won't respond to any of the normal startup modifiers.
It's also possible that the machine can't read the disk you're putting in. Check for obvious stuff like scratches on the disk or stuff jammed in the disk tray/slot. If it's not an original disk (ie, a copy of an install disk), it may not be formatted so that the mac can read it. Try to use an original OS install disk if you can get your hands on one.
is the disk a dvd? your drive might not be able to read dvds, depending on how old it is. try an external dvd drive, but has to be firewire. or you can try another mac, hold T at boot on the 2nd mac & see if it will boot from that drive (hold option on yours at boot.).
I got the PowerMac G4 (I think it is a digital audio) for free from a friend who was throwing it out. I do not know ANYTHING about Macs so I am flying by the seat of my pants here. The computer had i assume some sort of hard drive failure in the master hard drive it looks like so it is not recognizing any OS. I am trying to boot from a cd to get Mac OS 9.1 or Tiger to load but using a standard non-Mac USB keyboard and it doesn't seem to be working.
I keep getting the grey screen with the folder with the two faces and question mark flashing alternating. I am holding down C and starting it to boot from cd. It starts like it is going to read the cd then it spits out any disk I put in.
Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated!
Reboot your system. Then do a disk checkup. Could be a problem with your OS. Could be corrupt.