On Apr 10, 2009, at 1:21 PM, schrödinger's cat wrote:
<snip, system froze, yanking power was the only choise> > > i left it unplugged for 20 min to cool down. when i plugged the power > cord back in and tried to start up, no chime, the power LED indicator > on the front panel lit dimly for a few seconds, then flickered rapidly > between normal brightness and dim, then came on full brightness, and > after a few more seconds, a screen i have never seen on a mac > appeared. it looked similar to an old DOS boot screen. it had some > info about the machine, and a blinking cursor on a command line with a > simple carat (>), and instructions to type either "mac-boot" or "shut- > down" and hit return. The system booted right into Open Firmware. This is a Not Good sign. > i've put the original system disc in the DVD drive, and > it spins up for a few minutes, then ultimately spins down and self- > ejects the disc. it's done this three times now. Before you go any further, Open it up and unplug the hard drive data cable. Unplug the Optical drive data cable, and start it up. Hold down command-option-p-r and let it bong three times, then let it boot. If what happened is what I suspect happened (NVRAM is corrupted) it should go to the flashing question mark, but in a more normal sequence. If it does, shut it down and retry booting. If it still fails, yank the hard drive and test it on another system to see if it's scrambled or not. One of these <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 > will work very well for this purpose. If the drive comes up and Disk Utility on the other Mac recognizes it, do a repair. If it says that it is ok, or only had minor problems, the issue may be a hardware failure on the G5. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
