Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

i was going to suggest this above. it works as a hard disk and at least you can take your work of it. I have doneit with mine that doesnt work as a computer for more than 10 mins

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661

ah. but i know the hd is not the prob. i need some means of knowing what other bit died. :P

Hardware test, on the disk, grab a beverage, cross your fingers and let the magical process do it's thing.

so.. i put the orignal hd back in the dead g5, insert the cd. boot from the cd, run the hardwear test... yeah?

No need for the original HD, but yeah if you want, shouldn't matter. (Although you will get HD problems listed in the report if it isn't installed correctly.)

ok. sweet. just hope it boots off the cd. will let you know tomorrow ladies and gents.

good luck!

I could be wrong - it's happened before - but I think to access the Apple Hardware Tool you need to boot holding down the D key
Holding down the C will launch the installer

The 10.4.8 disk I've just found has these instructions printed on it

don't want to hijack:
but which intel mac would you recommend to buy used?
I have been hearing bad things about the first generation of these macs, but I need to replace my emac without shelling out for a new one..

I can only offer anecdotal evidence:
in 2006/early 2007 we bought seven MacPros for video editing. They pretty much ran 24hrs a day, either editing or compressing video, for three years with nary a problem.
These were the 2x 2.66 GHz (5150) Dual-core Intel Xeon MacPros.
I'd avoid second hand iMacs - they have a shorter working life and are much harder to repair if they develop a problem

Ok, cheers.

Pretty much all you're paying for in the premium of a Mac is the warranty, and longer life, so if you go second hand for savings, may as well get a PC (urgh!)

Pretty much all you're paying for in the premium of a Mac is the warranty, and longer life, so if you go second hand for savings, may as well get a PC (urgh!)

and os-x which is sort of free :-)

G5 mac here too, takes ages to boot up (5 mins or so sometimes). It works ok for some things, once it's running, but streaming video or even playing DVDs is jerky and unwatchable.
250 gig h/d with loads of free space, 2 gig RAM.
Some forums are suggesting that the HD itself might be about to fail for good...
Worth trying with a new HD?
Can I fit a second one in the case and try and transfer stuff across, or would it be better to start with a new drive and get everything back from the Time Capsule?

PC + dban ran from a USB stick or CD = properly wiped HD.

You just need a PC which can boot from USB. Nobody will recover anything from a disk once dban's been near it. Takes a long time though and make sure you don't have any other disks connected if you use the autonuke option.

Jono, thanks, but i might just smash it up with a hammer

Murts, are you sure? It's specialist material

Personally, I've run a G4 I got used trouble free for 5 years (still going strong) and am typing this on a second hand G5 (250GB 19" + bells and whistles) - same sketch. One was £150, the other £250. No way I'm going new prices when you can get them for that.

Bad Science
It does sound like a failing hard drive.
Fit another drive; there is a spare bay, underneath the existing drive. I think you need the old style IDE drive, not SATA. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (free download) to clone your old drive to the new one. Set the new drive as your start-up disk in preferences.
Reboot; be lucky.

ok. update.
booting with the tiger disc in the drive + c = nowt.
tried the PRAM reset too. nowt.
tried the boot + D = nowt but the cd draw opening.
not getting any video out, maybe its the video card then?
if i get time, i'll put a known working video card in it and see what happens. got a heap of work to do now, on a really old slow machine. gah!
new macs arrive at 3pm tho apparently. woo!

matt

Pretty much all you're paying for in the premium of a Mac is the warranty, and longer life, so if you go second hand for savings, may as well get a PC (urgh!)

And osx.
i just want what I'm used to, and some of the software I use is mac specific.
(:

picked up two 2005 dual 2.7's for £250 each. reletively fresh and working well. so the office is back up and running.
all this mac worrying makes me wonder weather or not i should get a new imac for my home studio. i had a deal on the cards of a late 2009 new 2.8ghz imac for £1600... don't know whether an imac is the way to go.

if you can afford it always get the tower. room for a scratch disk and internal backups plus more ram/different graphics card/e-sata card etc.
if it's just for surfing the web and the files you work on are small and not colour critical stick with the imac.

I'd agree with MrSmyth about the tower.
On the other hand the screens on the Imacs these days are really fucking sharp

sharp? is that street slang or they are sharper than other screens?
most screens have a similar pixel pitch and it's not what defines a good monitor.
it's an acceptable glossy screen and nothing more (the gloss adds contrast so no good for colour critical or print work)

Not slang - I'm sure you are right about the specs, but they look sharper than other screens we have around the office.
Just my opinion.

that's the contrast and the deeper blacks giving images more 'pop'