01-04-2011, 11:57 AM

Can anyone help please, i have this G5 which is running fine. My problem is ive bought a small (500gb) pocket drive which my macbook reads (snow leapard) but the G5 doesnt even register its existence.
So i need to update the software on the G5, i cant use the snow leapard as the mac and that arnt compatible, What do i need to upgrade to?
David

01-04-2011, 12:19 PM

Well...your G5 could be upgraded to Leopard (OS 10.5). Gonna cost you about $125...and it may not solve the problem.

When you say you bought this "small (500gb) pocket drive"...did you just pop it out of the packaging & plug it in? If so...maybe you need to format it first into a format that all your Mac's can read (G5 & MacBook).

I have external hard drives that I can move from a G4 running 10.4...to a G5 running 10.5...to a MacBook Pro running 10.6...and have no problems.

HTH,

- Nick

01-04-2011, 12:35 PM

Hi Nick, yes i did just plug it in, i did on both machines, the macbook saw it no problem, the G5 ignored the newcomer, so do you think i need to format it on the laptop first then the G5 will see it?

01-04-2011, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by Brackpack

Hi Nick, yes i did just plug it in, i did on both machines, the macbook saw it no problem, the G5 ignored the newcomer, so do you think i need to format it on the laptop first then the G5 will see it?

I would say that if you format it using Disk Utility (Mac OS extended) on either computer...it should work fine (on both computers).

The only reason why this external drive would NOT work with say the G5...is if you installed OS 10.6 on this drive...and then tried to boot from it on the G5 (since as you already mentioned, the G5 cannot run OS 10.6).

HTH,

- Nick

01-04-2011, 01:51 PM

i just reformatted it and tried it, the G5 still doesnt see or find it, just makes a ticking noise. Its a Hitachi

01-04-2011, 03:39 PM

As Nick asked, have you cloned Snow Leopard to the drive as Tiger will not recognise that? Intel machines set up drives as partitioned GUID and the G5, being a PowerPC, cannot read GUID and drives for them must be partitioned Apple Partition Map.

01-04-2011, 04:32 PM

Sorry guys, i really am out of my depth here, i didnt understand that last message at all, i had to format the drive on the macbook, has this therfore installed some form of snow leopard onto my drive, as my G5 wont see it, i couldnt format it on the G5. Also, by the by, when i connect it to the G5 it 'ticks', it doesnt do this on the Macbook

01-04-2011, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by Brackpack

...i had to format the drive on the macbook, has this therfore installed some form of snow leopard onto my drive, as my G5 wont see it, i couldnt format it on the G5.

When you connect this hard drive to your G5...you have to open "Disk Utility" in order to do the formatting. The hard drive should appear within Disk Utility...and then you should be able to format it.

- Nick