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General discussion

2004 Mac Power PC Dual Core 2gh installing and formatting

by thewhipper Oct 11, 2008 11:57PM PDT

My hard drive died so I purchased 2 - 500 G Seagate hard drives - 3.5 7200.11. I have put them in the machine and now I need help formatting them and putting the OS 10.5.4 leopard on them. Actually I would like to use one as a storage drive.

First thing I noticed is that I can't get the optical drive open - usually that is opened on the keyboard. So how can I incert a disc? Is there something else I need to do first?

2nd thing I noticed is that the drives started spinning faster and faster (and louder and louder) as if it were going to explode at some point. So I thought I'd ask for help since I don't realy know what I am doing... Happy

I hope you can help me get my computer up and running.
Sandy

Discussion is locked

6 Posts
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Installing Drives
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Oct 12, 2008 2:04AM PDT

First, you do not have a Power PC Dual Core 2Ghz machine.

It would help if you could tell us what version of the PM G4 you have.

You can find that information Here and Here

I doubt that it is your hard drives that are making all that noise and I suspect that you have a PMG4 MDD (mirrored doors) as this is typical of that series when the power supply goes bad.
The noise you hear are the cooling fans running up to max speed.
If you have a PM G4 MDD, be aware that the power supply for this machine is EXPENSIVE!!

As your G4 is not actually booting, it will never reach a point where the keyboard input is recognized.

P

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I have a 2004 G5
by thewhipper Oct 12, 2008 2:55AM PDT

I have a 2004 G5 - sorry, I forgot to mention it and it does have dual- core 2GHz processor

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Still not Dual Core but
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Oct 12, 2008 8:35AM PDT

Dual processors. Subtle difference.

There is nothing in that machine that would make the HD(s) spin so fast they would make a noise like they were going to explode.
The noise is the fans. Did you have the side door open when you heard this noise?

Next time you boot the machine, or try to, hold down the mouse button. The Optical drive should eject and you will be able to put the installation disk in there.

Once you have done that, do to disk utility and initialize the drive as HFS+ (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), whichever is offered.
Once done, reboot and install OS X onto whichever drive you want

Let us know how you get on

P

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Still not dual core
by thewhipper Oct 13, 2008 1:00AM PDT

Actually I figured everything out - there are 2 ports on the back - I had it plugged into the wrong one. It is running very quietly now.
I did figure out how to open the cd tray and I formatted the drives and installed Leopard. Everything is running great and I'm a happy camper now. I'll be installing my other software today.
I will certainly turn to you if I encounter anything else.

Thanks for everything!
Sandy

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Glad you got it going
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Oct 13, 2008 1:28AM PDT

enjoy

P

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Wikipedia
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Oct 12, 2008 2:16AM PDT
Back to Mac Applications forum

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