iMac Intel - Major issues....

Hi all my first post and after some info....hopefully you guys can come up with some hints or tips for me.....

I have an iMac G5 17" that the power supply popped on a little while ago (also think the Motherboard has gone aswell) they are not easy to source so when I saw an ad for 17" iMac i gave the guy a ring, he didn't know anything about it but it "boinged" when plugged in and showed a folder with question mark and had the ALS underneath so I assumed it was the correct one.....and power supply was obviously fine along with mother board....

Well it got delivered and I was a bit shocked when I opened the box and pulled out a 20" Intel iMac with iSight........this is the original Intel mac that looks the same as the original G5 mac........

Now here are my problems:

On boot up it only gets as far as the folder with the question mark....I have pretty much reset everything inc pram but it doesn't get any further....I have an emergency boot up disk for 10.4.6 but it is a disk I created and only contains PPC system and an early version of Disk Warrior......haven't got a clue where the original disk is......

So basically I have nothing to boot from.......I do have a DMG of the 10.4.6 and also a DMG of 10.5 but have no way of burning these to a disk.....have tried numerous options on a Vista Pc but haven't been able to make a bootable disk.

Right, before everyone states the obvious about the DMG's....I used to be an Apple Certified Engineer, I back up everything onto an external drive and USB sticks (even got stuff on some SCSI drives) and the Leopard install was a download from Applestore.....

So....I know I can order the disks online but this will take days to come through, was going to buy Lion but A, doesn't run on this Mac, B, Can only get it via download.....

Have tried every single shop that sell mac gear in my area and not a single one has Leopard in Disc format......

Any option on how to boot this.....first I want to find out if in general it works and if it is worth fixing.....

Second bit, will the hard drive (with a reformat) from my original G5 work in the Intel iMac.......

Every Disc I put in the mac pops back out within 15 seconds, I assume this is because the disks are crap (ones I have tried to burn on a Vista Pc)......

Any advice etc, muchly appreciated......

Apolagise for the long post.....my bad.....;P

The drive from your original Mac will not work. And to my knowledge, you cannot burn an OS X install image in Windows and get a bootable disc. I tried to help someone through that recently with no luck in finding a solution. The only solution for you that I see is to get a retail copy of OS X. Snow Leopard is 29 bucks.

If you are lucky, you may just need to reinstall the OS. But be aware that the hard drive may be toast, thus the reason you are getting the folder with a question mark. It may also be a bad SATA controller on the motherboard. Ideally, you should run the Apple Hardware Test, but that's only on the OEM install discs for that machine and you obviously don't have them.

Thanks for the response.....deep down I know the only option is to get a retail copy of OSX....typically I am inpatient when it comes to this and the earliest I can get that is two weeks from now as I am away here and there until then.......

Didn't think the drive would work, heard that they have to be the same make as the original drive, is this the case, do I have to get a Western Digital drive....that would be a new one on me!

Not fussed about having to buy a new drive or even the new disks.......if that is the only cost then I have got myself a serious bargain......

Markymark123 said:

Thanks for the response.....deep down I know the only option is to get a retail copy of OSX....typically I am inpatient when it comes to this and the earliest I can get that is two weeks from now as I am away here and there until then.......

Didn't think the drive would work, heard that they have to be the same make as the original drive, is this the case, do I have to get a Western Digital drive....that would be a new one on me!

Not fussed about having to buy a new drive or even the new disks.......if that is the only cost then I have got myself a serious bargain......

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I'm not sure about your specific model, but I know that at least with the mid-2010 iMacs, they have to be the same model because the temperature sensor cable is different for each manufacturer. Pretty lame. Check EveryMac.com for any details about yours.

lifeisabeach said:

The drive from your original Mac will not work.

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Been looking into this and as you said in your previous post the mid 2010 mac's do need a direct replacement........but by the looks of it, my hard drive from my 2004 G5 iMac can replace the drive in my 2006 intel iMac.........

Sites I have been looking at for replacement drives all show the same Hard Disk's being used for both of these Mac's........

So hopefully all I need is Snow Leopard and off I go.....

Thanks again for the advice.....

I think what LB was saying is you can not just pop in the drive from your iMac G5 and have it boot as the OS is Power PC on that drive. The iMac G5's SATA drive is the same as in the early and even not so early Intel iMacs. It will work if the drive in the Intel iMac is toast.

Get Snow Leopard for $29 and try to install. You will soon learn if the drive is bad.

Good luck and PLEASE report back when you find out more info.

See what your saying, obviously no it won't boot due to the difference in the operating system.....I was looking more at the situation that if the drive in the Intel Mac is toast, then I can replace it with the drive in the G5 iMac, reformat and load the Snow Leopard system.......

The drive in the G5 iMac is relatively new which is why I posed the question in the first place, as it is currently sitting on the worktop doing nothing.....will save me a bit of cash.....lol

It will for sure work. I took the Hard drive from my 20" iMac G5 iSight and put it in a newer Intel 24" iMac. Worked great. Understand about saving $$$.

And just had a result.....I have been called out on a job......Mac reseller is literally 5 min walk from the site and they have Snow leopard in stock......

Happy days, will find out tonight what the problem is......wish me luck......lol

Good Luck! Can't wait to see what happens.

Well, here we go.....

Got home and the first thing I did was switch on the Mac and put the System disc in.......and nothing......same again, folder with a question mark.....gutted!

So into tech mode, I opened her up again and swapped the optical drive from my G5 iMac with the one in the intel, the drives are exactly the same to look at although the model number was slightly different.....

I will state at this point that these iMac's are total pain to work with, removing the screen just to get to the board is a headache and even getting the optical drive out was a right nightmare.....

Anyway, drive replaced, restart Mac and straight away that lovely spinning noise kicked in and the girl booted up......

Hard drive was fine, just a few minor issues, so a quick format, install of Leopard and she is up and running like a dream.......

I am going to assume that the optical drive went on this originally and then was followed with a minor disk error, as these are not the easiest of Mac's to work on it obviously just got left, would hate to know how much Apple would charge to work on these Mac's.....

So for a total spend of £76.00....I have a fully functional Intel iMac.......happy days!

Thanks for returning and posting that! Great news for sure! Glad it's working. You got a really good deal.

If we can ever help in the future, just ask!

Take care.

dtravis7 said:

Thanks for returning and posting that! Great news for sure! Glad it's working. You got a really good deal.

If we can ever help in the future, just ask!

Take care.

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Cheers.......I will be staying and hopefully will be able to give a little bit back to the forum as well.......

Plenty of good threads and posters on this forum....a pleasure to be part of it.....

That is great to hear. Jump in when you can. Welcome to Mac Forums!