OS won't install in imac G5

I bought a second gen. (no isight) iMac G5 with no hard drive and was told it wouldn't power up just stayed black. I replaced 9 bad caps in the power supply & it powered right up. Happy. I had a hard drive from a newer intel imac with osx 10.5 already on it that always worked fine. First try the screen just showed two arrows..one circled and one pointing to the right. Didn't know what to do. Now, it's flashing ? and finder icon on a little folder and nothing else. I tried booting from install disc and hd is shown with red exclamation mark and states it can't install to the chosen volume "mac hd". I tried another hd and same thing. I did a complete erase and still it refuses to boot to the os. C on startup takes me all the way to 'select volume' where it finds a problem. Before I suspect a bad logic board I'd like to know if any of you would like to share some tricks to fixing this that I don't know about.

The hard drive from your Intel iMac is formatted and partitioned with GUID and not Apple Partition Map and their for will not work as-is with a Power PC Mac. Also a Power PC Mac will NOT boot off an Intel OSX. What install DVD are you using? Is it from an Intel Mac?

If you have a Retail OSX DVD, you need to open Disk Utility and partition the drive and select Advanced and click on Apple Partition Map.

I was trying to install Tiger 10.4 that came with the iMac. I did erase the intel hard drive using the disk utility but that didn't reformat or repartition it. Since I'm still spinning my wheels in the learning curve on these I also haven't figured out how to find the path to format it without an operating system going. I'm a little in the dark on how to format and partition without it. But thanks very much for the heads up on the intel aspect.

Boot up with the OSX Tiger DVD. When you get to the installer screen, look up top for the Utilities menu. Click on it and then on Disk Utility. Click on the Partition Tab. You will see current. Click there and change it to 1 partition. Click on Advanced. Be sure if there is an option in Tiger that it's set to Apple Partition Map. Click Apply. I am pretty sure those are the options. Not done this in Tiger in a while.

Yes do as our mod says. The Intel drive is operating under GUID and it must be changed to Apple Partition Map in order the PPC G5 can see it. Must boot from the Tiger disc as described. Keep us posted?

Alright. Went to Disk utilities no partition option here. A window with First Aid, RAID, Erase and Restore. There's also Verify Disk & Repair Disk which I had already done with the 'disk passed verification' and 'no repairs necessary'. None of these offer partition options, either. I don't see it grayed out anywhere, either.

Oops...found it. When selecting the hard drive I highlighted Mac HD which is the volume not the hd. I'll go through your instructions now and see what happens...

I should have mentioned that. Glad you figured it out. Keep us posted.

Whoop! Worked like a song. 10.4 is loading as I speak. Many thanks to you kind folks for sharing your vast knowledge and expertise.

VERY cool! Glad we could help. Let us know how you like the iMac G5 once you get it all up and running.

Good going on replacing the Capacitors. A lot of people would just give up and toss it out. If one can solder it's really not that hard to do.

gsmithp said:

Whoop! Worked like a song. 10.4 is loading as I speak. Many thanks to you kind folks for sharing your vast knowledge and expertise.

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I know that I didn't help on this thread...but next time you order a Pizza...send a couple slices Mac-Forums way!!!. Maybe someone will let me get a bite!

- Nick

And don't give none to Nick -- he never helped!

Harry, that is mean!

Nick, set up your iPizza on one of your 45 Macs. I will send you an iPizza! Grin

dtravis7 said:

Harry, that is mean!

Nick, set up your iPizza on one of your 45 Macs. I will send you an iPizza! Grin

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I'm sure Harry was teasing!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

I'm sure Harry was teasing!

- Nick

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So am I! see the smile?

and iPizza? I wish! Come on Jobs, make it!

You took out the number of Macs from your stats. Now no one knows how many you have!

dtravis7 said:

Harry, that is mean!

Nick, set up your iPizza on one of your 45 Macs. I will send you an iPizza! Grin

Click to expand...

I figure Harry was teasing!

But I certainly don't want to get between a man & his pizza!!!

- Nick

Edit: I did an edit...not sure why it posted twice.