powerpc g5 tower

powerpc g5 tower. grey screen. dvd drive won't open

I have G5 powerpc.I know it's old but I loath to get rid of it as it is fully loaded and has served me well. I have a problem.
It will not boot. Grey screen and then to prohibited sign. I have tried various suggestions and want to reinstall the OS. I need the data in the drives I think the current Os is Tiger. I can't get the superdrive to open. I have tried to access the drive from a current macbook laptop with has snow leopard instslled but no luck. Any suggestions?

Normally one would force the optical drive to open by holding the mouse down (for a prolonged time) on startup. Have you tried that?

THANKS!. the optical drive works now as per your suggestion BUT I still can't boot.Still on grey screen and prohibited sign. I also forgot to mention that the fan moves into hgh speed after a while. The problem started when I plugged in a Scanner that was used on a PC and it crashed. This is what I have done so far.

1) Try to start with the original Power Mac G5 install disc
2) Try to start with disk warrior
3) Try to start with a Panther OS disk
4) Remove all peripherals
5) Remove hard drive and reinserted back.

Thanks

naratu said:

I have a problem. It will not boot. Grey screen and then to prohibited sign.

I need the data in the drives I think the current Os is Tiger.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by the "prohibited sign"...but it's very possible that your hard drive has died. And if this is the case...any files & apps are gone without a backup.

If all that is needed is to replace the HD & reinstall the OS...that's easy. Bt if data needs to be recovered...it may not look very good.

- Nick

The fan coming on is indicative of other issues that the G5 towers have had over the years. Your best bet, if all else fails, is to buy an external case (Firewire, USB, whatever) and put the G5s boot drive it. Connect it to another Mac and see if you can access it. If not try purchasing recovery software (such as Data Rescue III, $99) to retrieve the data off the drive.

If you are able to mount and read the drive normally as described above then the issue with the G5 is the G5, not the drive. Lots of issues with those machines, usually related to the motherboard or the liquid CPU cooling systems. Not worth fixing, it's cheaper to buy a new Xeon Mac Pro. Try the drive as I described above, at least you can recover your data.