PowerPC :: G4 Holding Option Key During Startup Does Nothing
Jun 19, 2010
So I bought a "new" PowerMac G4. I have two already.
The guy said it was running os 9 but now it wouldn't boot. I figured it needed an OS and the guy was wrong. I try to boot it up...
flashing ? folder
So I go thru all hell trying to install os x and what not.
It won't boot to the install CD. I finally got it to boot from my other Powermac's HD with OS X on it, but I can't seem to install OS X on this other HD, but that's not really what I'm asking here...
When I startup the PM and hold Option, nothing happens with either HD installed!!! No boot menu comes up.
Also when I hold down C, nothing happens at least nothing different. It doesn't boot to the CD.
Why is this?
Sometimes it seems to boot to my HD OS X and sometimes it boots to the CD on it's own. I can't choose what I want it to boot to unless I start the OS X and select it from there.
I've used the bootcamp assistant to create a 200 GB partition for Windows. I installled windows 7 x64 on this partition, everything is going well so far. I'm able to press the option key after installation and run windows and perform some updates (note, I couldn't install the required software IN windows from the snow leopard disk, let's hope this is not the source of my problem).
Everything went well so I booted back to OSX and I noticed that I needed some more partitions, so I've split my Macintosh HD further into a Media and a School partition. I didn't touch the windows partition though.
After experiencing (before) with hackintosh computers I know that i have to rewrite the boot configuration of the harddrive. Because now I'm not seeing the Windows HD anymore while holding the option key at startup and therefore unable to boot into Windows anymore. Even parallels can't discover the Windows partition.
I've tried repairing permissions, and nothing. I've tried to use the repair option on the Windows 7 disk which states it can't be done.
What can I do? Do I have to repartition it again in an different order (bootcamp states that it can only create a Windows partition if there's only 1 partition in the harddrive, so it's logical to repartition the drive after bootcamp created the Windows HD or even after the installation of Windows itself). Perhaps I need to rewrite the boot config of the mac, which I don't have a clue about.
Being 64 bit windows is not an issue, because it worked at first (before repartitioning)
Alright I was going to load Windows on a partition thru Boot Camp. However I decided not to and then used the Boot Camp assistant to remove the Windows partition.
Ever since I got rid of the Windows partition, I've have to hold the OPTION key just to get my MBP to boot even though there is NO other operating system installed on the old partition. If I don't hold the OPTION key it won't boot, it just goes to a black screen.
I had this issue a while ago but it never came to this. I have bootcamp and want to change OS, so I restart while holding option key and here are 2 outcomes
1. The screen stays grey and mac is just standing like this, I waited for 5 minutes but no options came out.
2. If I hold option immediately while Mac is restarting screen stays black and sleep button is lid up all the time, nothing happens.
I have Vista/OSX installed on my 8-core Mac Pro (early 2008). When I'm attempting to switch OS by holding alt/option during the loadup, it's no longer detecting the keypress. I have the USB wired Apple keyboard fed through my 24in dell monitor and then connected to a USB spot on the back of my mac. I've noticed that when I plug the keyboard directly into the USB on the front of the Mac, the keypress is detected just fine. The weird part is that the way I have it set up now (with the keyboard connecting through the monitor) used to work without a problem to get to the OS load screen. I recently had to reinstall OSX because of a hard drive failure and ever since, it's not detecting. It's annoying to have to unplug/replug my keyboard, just to boot in windows.
I have tried numerous times to restart my macbook pro to get to the startup manager. And even when holding down the option key, it will just take me back to the flashing file with a question mark in it.
My computer has a kernel panic problem. And I'd like to fix it by booting as safe boot. I hold the shift key after the tone, and release it when the apple and loading gear appear. But, the bar that indicates that safe mode is loading never appears. It'll just boot on regular boot.
I was planning on selling my iBook G4 to assist in buying a refurb MB, but might there be any advantages to hanging on to it? The only thing I can think of is as an additional backup, but as it is only 60 GB, doesn't seem worth it. Book G4, 1.33, 640MB, 60 GB. Any creative uses for it or is it best to sell?
This is a mystery to me. Long story but the gist of it is that I found if I hold down the power-button on my iBook while it's off it goes into some weird mode. i.e. fan spins, disc spins, sleep light flashes and a tone comes from the speakers.Is this some sort of hardware test mode? Is it going to blow up? Is it resetting something?
I have a 17" G4 1Ghz iMac, we used it until 10 months ago when I got my new 24" Intel 2GHz machine. That new 24" iMac is now in the basement craftroom as the digital hub for pictures/video/etc., while I brought the 17" G4 1Ghz iMac out from my closet for the upstairs loft general web surfing machine. It worked for 2 days and upon shut down would not re-start. I could only hear the fan and nothing else. If I held the power button for 10 seconds upon trying to start up there was a chime that sounded for a few seconds. Once the fan is making small sound, nothing else, if I hold power button for 5-20 seconds the computer will shut down (fan turn off).
Did some online checking, found article on PMU, so I did try and re-set PMU via the apple support article.Resetting the iMac (Flat Panel) Power Management Unit (PMU). Still, no re-start. It was running the latest 10.4.x update upon being put away for 10 months. Here is a picture of the bottom, the red light is on upon trying power on, my finger is on the PMU reset button. Is there any other diagnostic thing I can do? Is there a battery on this logic board that I can check/replace? I'm 100% ok at taking it apart and trying anything to fix it.
When I turn it on it runs fine for sometimes about a minute (sometimes less) before it just turns itself off! After it turns itself off I'll hit the power button and it emits a high pitch squeal from the machine whilst holding the button. If I then remove the battery from the Machine depending on how long I leave the battery out and put it back in, it will then power up for a short amount of time. Sometimes I can get it to the desktop and open System Profiler for example, other times it gets as far as the Apple grey screen. I've ordered a power adaptor as I didn't get one with the machine but as far as the battery indicator goes, it's on 96% and all four green lights are on the battery indicator on the base. Has anyone heard of any problems like this before?I believe it's running a 500mhz processor and has 512mb of Ram.
I cannot start up my Mac Pro 2008 without holding down the Option key.My Snow Leopard internal hard drive failed, so I replaced my failed internal drive with a brand new one and put the cloned backup onto it. I also have other internal drives and partitions with systems 10.5.6, 10.7.5, and 10.8.4. I briefly added a Mavericks partition, but removed it.Â
I THINK the problems started after the HD failure, but I'm not sure. I added no peripherals recently, although I did add 4 gigs of RAM which were faulty and I had to replace them. But they test fine with a memory test. If I Restart, the Mac comes up with a grey screen and won't boot into any system.
If I Shut down, then Start up, I get the gray screen. In System Preferences, I can see every single possible Startup Drive, but no matter which one I select, the same gray screen happens on boot up. However, if I hold down the Option key (from startup or restart), then I can choose any startup volume and it starts just fine.Â
I've run Disk Utility many times for Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions on every volume. I've run Disk Warrior. I've zapped the SMC/PRAM, etc. I've tried starting up from external firewire drives and USB drives. No matter which drive I select in StartUp Disk Preferences, it's the same grey screen. I've tried starting up with ZERO peripherals attached except for USB keyboard and mouse. I've taken out all startup and login items. I don't mind using the Option key every time, but I'm worried it's a sign of impending problems.Â
Info: Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5), Early 2008, Radeon 5770,
i just bought an early 2010 Macbook running OsX 10.6.8, all updates have been done. I cant seem to start file sharing, in the preferences window>sharing the window stays blanc. Also i noticed that the icon of sharing looks the same as the general preferences icon, normally this is a folder with a yellow mark on it.
Info: MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), early 2010 edition
I believe the Macs at my college allow the user to select from either Mac OSX or Windows at startup. However, it's a little different than holding down the option key at startup. I think it shows both at startup by default and if none is chosen, Mac will boot automatically within a couple of seconds.
I have previously set my mac so a login name and password are required on start up. I have just done this on my new mac, but for some reason it is not appearing at start up.
I partitioned my MacPro HD to use Mac OS 10.7.4 and Windows Vista. All of a sudden holding down the Option key at start up no longer gives the optional start up systems for selection. How do I g et that function back?
Was trying to install Windows XP through BootCamp. The installation did not go through, and I quit it. After I tried to restart the computer however, it kept going to a black screen with a blinking _ on top.
I restarted, pressing the "option" key and the only partition that shows up there is one for Windows. I can't see one labeled "Mac" or something like it anywhere. I tried using the Repair Disk Utility but it won't actually give me the option to repair ir.
When I hold down Option on boot up, it loads to a grey screen with a dark grey padlock. Under that is a password entry field then a dark-grey circle with a right pointing arrow. I've tried every password I can think of but it does nothing. When I click enter the password just dissapears.
I have a 13 inch aluminum late 2008 MacBook. The processor is 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 running OS X Lion 10.7.4. I am in the process of replacing my old hard drive with a new one.
My old hard drive is partitioned as follows: Name: Macintosh HD Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled) Size: 132.5 GB Name: BootCamp Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS) Size: 26.69 GB
When I was partitioning the new drive I did so as follows: Name: Macintosh HD Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Size: 973.51 GB Name: BootCamp
Format: MS-DOS (FAT) --- This was the only option that I was given that I thought would work. I did not have the option of "Windows NT File System (NTFS) to choose from. I only run 1 program on Windows and that is the only reason I have BootCamp on there at all. However, I do HAVE to have that program. Size: 26.34 GB (I just used the same size that was current, or close to it.)
I connected the new Western Digital 1 TB through an external device, partitioned it as stated above, and then used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the drives. It went through fine. (It took 2 hours and I went to bed before it finished.) This morning I woke to see that it had gone through well. I then started the process with the BootCamp drives.
However, before I started it gave me errors stating that I wouldn't be able to run Windows off of the Cloned BootCamp drive. So I used Winclone and it seemed to work fine. I then replaced the old drive with the new one. Then I rebooted the machine. Everything seems to be fine except when I went to restart it in Windows using BootCamp that was not an option. The only start up disks listed are the Macintosh HD.
Info: MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
When I try turning the computer on, I get the option to choose the startup disk, but only Recovery is visible. When i check in Recovery, it still shows my original start up disk, but I cannot restart off that. What do I do?
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
I was surprised yesterday to find that holding down option key during restart did NOT bring up the Startup Manager screen.Usign Lion, wireless Appple Keyboard and external HD connected with FireWire. Is the isue the wireless keyboard? The Firewire connected drive?I was able to go to System Preferences and choose my startup volume but I much prefer the more temporary state pressing option key when rebooting to choose which volume for startup
Info: MacbookPro (Unibody) 2.8 Ghz 4 Gig Ram; 24, Mac OS X (10.7.1), Hubby'siMac 20" 2009 ,10.6.6. 2 Gig RAM
My brother's iBook G4 (I think it's a 2003 model) has a problem with the screen. When the computer is turned on, the screen stays black, although the backlight is on (the apple glows). Sometimes, on start up, the screen works normally for a random amount of time before going fuzzy and then black again.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Is it likely to be a problem with the hardware in the actual computer, or just the screen? Or is it a software thing?
I have a powermac g5, and I use time machine with it. If I sell the G5 and keep the external time machine drive, can I just connect the time machine drive to my new mini and get everything back? I want to get everything back, including apps, files etc. Can I just drag everything off the external drive and copy it all to my mini?
After clicking System Preference how do I get SCAN option to appear so documents can be scanned? Currently only the Print option is visible and having no problems with printing. Printer is a HP Laser Jet 300.
When I push the start up button, nothing happens. If I pull the power plug then reconnect it, the computer will start using the start up button on the front, but I noticed the start up chime is different (like older G4's) and the big fan doesn't start. Also icons in the dock don't bounce. If I then restart using the apple menu, the normal chime comes on, icons react normally, but the big fan still doesn't work.
Just had the big fan replaced so I wondering if I have bigger issues lurking.
I recently reinstalled a clean Tiger on my old MDD G4 with the intent on giving it to a friend of mine in Oregon. Everything was smooth here in Los Angeles. Got the OS on and running sweet... 10.4.11 combo update... all's well.
I drive up to Oregon, set it up in his office using his old CRT monitor and power it on. It chimes and manages to find the Tech Tool eDrive recovery partition, but not the OS on the boot drive. Then, seconds later, screen of death/kernel panic and no boots or startup chimes thereafter.
Steps I've taken: I have reset the PMU I have removed all peripherals, including viddy, SATA adapter and all but on stick of RAM Tried every stick of RAM by itself No startup chime -- just a fan for a few seconds then a super fan kicks in... no signal to monitor at all.
Strange symptom: at times power was making it to the drives, and other times not. (determined by me putting my hand on the drive to feel its vibration or lack thereof during boot).
Do I need a new PSU? And if so where to buy?
------------------------------ Dual 867 MDD G4 SATA adapter/w 300GB Tiger boot drive and 200GB data drive (w/ Panther still installed) 120GB data drive on IDE 66 bus w/Tech Tool recovery / restore partition ------------------------------
