cant reinstall os x on a powermac g5...

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
wasn't sure if this should go here or genius bar....please help!

yesterday i noticed that my mail ap quit unexpectedly. i am good about repairing permissions often so tried this again and nothing. whenever i tried to start mail it would just show the unexpectedly quit box and stop. trashing prefs didnt help. after awhile i decided to just wipe the drive (formatting with zeros) and reinstall. on a brand new 10.3.5 disk it would get through disc one and then during the disc 2 install it would stop saying "errors on intallation". i tried reparing the disc, doing a complete techtool deluxe surface scan which showed no problems. i would imagine this has something to do with a bad drive but am at a loss.

anyone have a clue what this could be? i really dont want to take this thing over to the apple store so i am without it for a week or so. would really appreciate any help but have a bad feeling that something hardware is toast....

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Check the installation CDs for *ANY* scratch, hair, dust or lint. They're quite finicky.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    You don't by chance have a Geforce 6800 Ultra, do you? It's unlikely you do, but if you do, I heard the install CD doesn't have the drivers for the Geforce 6800 Ultra and causes problems.



    Do you have any third party hardware installed on the G5? You may want ot remove it.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Leonard

    You don't by chance have a Geforce 6800 Ultra, do you? It's unlikely you do, but if you do, I heard the install CD doesn't have the drivers for the Geforce 6800 Ultra and causes problems.



    Do you have any third party hardware installed on the G5? You may want ot remove it.




    From the description given, it's likely a scratch or hair.



    I'd recommend running the [extended] hardware test that came with your G5 (it's a CD that says "hardware test" on it), just in case.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    macflymacfly Posts: 256member
    thanks for the ideas. now that you mention it, im not sure. its a rev.a dual 2.0 g5.

    its odd because i tried the installation at least 4 times and each time erasing it. some would get further than others before quiting. i checked for scratches but these were brand new , right out of the box.

    apple support today suggested the hardware test and putting it in continuous loop mode for a few hours to see if anything shows up. i mean, how finiky can these cd readers be? whats odd is that each time it does seem to be random as to how far it goes
  • Reply 5 of 7
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    I had exactly this behaviour the first time I tried to install Rhaps... er, MacOS X. There was a small piece of lint on the CD. It moves from spot to spot under spinning and electric charges, giving different problems each time.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    You could try to make a copy of the install disk, this has worked for me several times.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    macflymacfly Posts: 256member
    in case anyone else runs into this problem.....turns out it was a bad RAM chip. after running hardware test it showed one of the original apple modules was bad. the crucial RAM sticks i had worked fine. once i removed the bad apple ones the install went fine (apple care saved me and they will be sending replacement sticks )

    guess bad ram can really screw up all sorts of things.
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