G4 refuses to boot from CD...

[Sclay115]

I'm trying to get a clean install of Tiger on my G4, and for some reason it's refusing to boot from the CD. If I put the CD in and open it, it's fine, but when it tells me to restart and boot from CD, it won't do it.

Also, I tried to just choose it as a start up disk in the preferences, but it doesn't show up in there. Any ideas? Can I do this from firmware?

Steve

[Sclay115]

Anybodies?

Steve

[MacHeadCase]

Is this a retail full install copy of Tiger or are you trying to use a restore disk from another Mac model?

[Sclay115]

Is this a retail full install copy of Tiger or are you trying to use a restore disk from another Mac model?

Retail. And if I try to boot with the "C" key depressed, it doesn't even recognize that the CD drive is there. That's why I'm thinking it's a hardware problem. But I'm not sure. I don't know enough about Macs to diagnose.

Steve

Edit: It's not the "C" key I mean, I believe it's the 'Option' key, whichever one brings you to the point in which you can select what drive to boot from, that's when it doesn't recognize the drive. Says the HD is there, just not the CD drive.

[MacHeadCase]

Yeah it looks like your optical drive is at fault here. Do you have another Mac OS X Macintosh in the house? You might get to do the reinstall using FireWire Disk Target mode.

[Sclay115]

Hm, that's weird, as this is a known good working optical drive. It works fine everywhere else. Seems like, at least coming from the PC world, that the optical drive is being recognized too late in the boot up process. I know that in the BIOS on a PC, you can usually change the order in which things boot. Is there something similar in the MAC world? I even tried to boot from the CD in open firmware mode, I think that is what it is called, similar to the DOS command prompt before Windows boots on a PC.

Steve

[MacHeadCase]

Could it be that your install media is damaged then?

Uhm are you using the internal optical drive, btw?

[Sclay115]

Yes it's the internal drive, sorry for not mentioning so. But the software could be damaged, I'll see if I can get a hold of another copy. I like that firewire idea. Seems like a viable option. My girlfriend has a Big Burly Powerbook. And to clarify, I would put my iBook into target disk mode, and then boot her's, and go into installing Tiger, but choose the destination drive as mine correct? Seems to be the plan from what I've read..

Steve

[MacHeadCase]

Yep just follow the How To from the Apple website.

I would guess it is your CD/DVD then that is scratched or dirty and that the optical drive can't get a clean read from it.

[Sclay115]

Right on, I'll give it a shot tonight. And post up if it works or not. Thanks.

Steve

[MacHeadCase]

Cool, keep us posted! And no problem! Good luck with it!