I think I really wrecked my Powermac! Please help!

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Okay, so here's the skinny:

I tried to upgrade my powermac to osx 10.5.6 and the instillation failed at the 99% mark (corrupted data on the disc). It boots up to the login screen but wont let me log in no matter what I do (every time I try to log in the login page goes grey/unaccessable for a minute then shakes as the username and password section go blank.) The only way to get any options was to insert the osx 10.5.6 disc and use the installer to get any access to the disc utilites feature.
After repeating this cycle for an hour or so and then switched the boot disc to the dvd drive, and spent an hour trying to undo this.
Now when I turn on the computer, it will eject the disc drive every time I turn it on and the "C" key does nothing. Can anyone help me get this thing working right again please?
 
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Gday and welcome to the forums.

What model computer was this on and what type of discs are you using for the install? The grey coloured discs are system install discs and will only install with that particular model.

Also Leopard requires as a minimum an 867MHz processor.
 
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It is a late 2004 model with dual 1.8ghz processors (power pc processors, not intel) I was using a 10.5 install disc there didn't appear to be anything wrong with it physically. I tried to use the grey discs to do a system restore but all it did was bring up a window asking me if I wanted to do a hardware test.
 
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If the grey discs came with the G5 when new, run Apple Hardware Test and see what is reported. When you commenced the install, did you run Disk U\tility > Repair Disk from the Leopard discs to check the hard drive was in good condition?
 
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I haven't run a hardware test yet. I will try to run the hardware test, it hasn't been running the discs properly (it keeps ejecting the disc drive after the chime, I may have to replace the disc drive)
 
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I haven't run a hardware test yet. I will try to run the hardware test, it hasn't been running the discs properly (it keeps ejecting the disc drive after the chime, I may have to replace the disc drive)

No, I don't think so. I have the same problem, it chimes and spits the disc out.* But my machine is normally running fine (occasional random shutdown), and I can read and write discs just fine. So I doubt the disc drive hardware is bad. Maybe you fritzed the software to control it with your aborted install, that's a different story.

What happens if you swap another hard drive into your machine, and try to install fresh? (You don't want to use the backup drive, so yeah, it would necessitate buying another drive.


*I'm also inserting my original HW Test disc, wondering if it will only work with the 10.5 HWT disc which I don't have, it's at another house.
 
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Discs that came with one model will nopt work with a different computer. They are extremely model specific and that seems to be the problems with the superdrives ejecting the discs.

2004 G5 PowerMacs came originally with OS X.3.7 system install discs. That is the only discs that will boot and run Apple Hardware Test.
 
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I can't run the hardware test because all it does is spit out the disc, I have tried swapping out the dvd drive with a similar drive and it did the same thing. I have tried swapping the harddrive connectors with the second set (why not?) and it thinks for a second and still continues to do the same thing. It didn't keep spitting out discs until I set it to boot off the disc drive and then back to boot off the hard drive.
 
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For the third time - did the grey discs actually come with that machine when brand new as Apple specs report 2004 G5 PowerMacs came with OS X.3.7 system discs and that is the only discs that will contain Apple Hardware Test for your Mac.

The spitting discs out is typical, of trying to boot from the incorrect discs.
 
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As far as i can tell yes. I got the computer 2nd hand so I can't know if they are truly the original discs.
 

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