HELP All reasons a late 2005 iMac with isight won't see an internal hd

i Have a late 2005 iMac with isight. That i have put a known good drive in (taken from working machine and also checked with drive genus and disk utility) the machine will not even see that there is a drive. Now for what I've done its been formatted with apple partition map, I've done all resets (pram, Nvram, and pmu) also replaced data cable the drive is spinning and have also tried a alternate power source on the drive. it will take my leopard disk but there is no where to install when i get to that point. ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. Been at this for hours to no avail

Guess even the community is stumped. I sure am

jelder09 said:

it will take my leopard disk but there is no where to install when i get to that point. ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. Been at this for hours to no avail

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After booting from the OS install disk...did you open Disk Utility...and format the drive (Mac OS Extended Journaled)?

- Nick

actually i did it externally because the machine behaves like there is no hard drive even disk utility dosent see it. But when pulled from the machine it works just fine

Nick, If you remember back with my 20" iMac G5 iSight, that was my exact issue. Mine was blown capacitors on the Logic board. No matter what, no hard drive would show up on the internal SATA controller.

I ended up at the time putting the drive in an external Firewire 400 case. USB on the G5 does not boot.

seriously? I have been starting to suspect logic board level. I was gonna try another drive but if not i will pull the board and check them capacitors

jelder09 said:

actually i did it externally because the machine behaves like there is no hard drive even disk utility dosent see it. But when pulled from the machine it works just fine

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I'm a little confused. Did you ever install the replacement drive internally...or just externally?

- Nick

dtravis7 said:

Nick, If you remember back with my 20" iMac G5 iSight, that was my exact issue. Mine was blown capacitors on the Logic board. No matter what, no hard drive would show up on the internal SATA controller.

I ended up at the time putting the drive in an external Firewire 400 case. USB on the G5 does not boot.

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You thinking the OP has blown/leaking caps?

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

You thinking the OP has blown/leaking caps?

- Nick

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All I can say is that is why mine did that exact same thing. It was for sure the Logic board. NO drive would read and many caps were bulging. One oozing!

At the time found several other people with the same iSight G5 and they had the same issues. Some did not know why, but no internal drive would show up.

Worked with FW400 though.

I installed internally. Didn't see anything so i pulled the drive and checked it on my other iMac. I got this iMac today with no drive so i pulled the drive from my working iMac to put in this one to no avail so i pulled it back out rechecked it re-installed and nothing. Then changed data cable still nothing tried leopard and tiger nothing sees it and when the drive is hooked it white screens but when the drive is out its blinking folder

jelder09 said:

I got this iMac today...

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Just so I got this right...you saying this "problem" iMac...you just got it today?

Was it working when you bought it? What was the understanding from the seller on it's condition (working/non-working)?

If it was not working when you bought it (had an existing issue)...it's not like we can perform some sort of miracle to get it working.

- Nick

Yes i could externally boot from an ibook with fw but don't have a sata drive holder with fw. Because like you said ppc can't boot from usb

Im not asking for a miracle. Just some suggestions or experience on this topic I have never ran into this particular problem. There is always someone out there who is or has had the same issues and came up with the solution.

I told you what the same issue was here and what was causing it. Many others had the same problem like I said with the same cause. I did run into a few who said it was the SATA controller chip that died and a few that had power supply issues. Mine BTW did also have one bad Cap in the power supply which went BANG shortly after the SATA drive issue started.

jelder09 said:

Im not asking for a miracle. Just some suggestions or experience on this topic I have never ran into this particular problem. There is always someone out there who is or has had the same issues and came up with the solution.

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You sort of are asking for a miracle. It sounds like you purchased this iMac non-working (probably for a very good price)...and you were hoping that one of us had some sort of "magic fix".

"dtravis7" mentioned that he had what sounds like the same problem. He's pretty darn good with computers...so I would say if he couldn't find a reasonable solution...then this iMac is probably beyond any financially reasonable sort of repair.

Dennis (dtravis7) also mentioned that his iMac G5 had bulging & leaking capacitors. You could check your iMac G5 to see if you have the same thing.

Good luck,

- Nick

Already pulled logic board. A couple bulging caps. Power supply is next to look for caps if I'm gonna do it i might as well change them all. And was just doing some reading about that chip.

Of course i bought it broken. I buy 5-10 macs a week broken and either fix or use for parts. Never used the forums before and thought i would post a issue and see what happens.

Thanks for the help guys
josh

Thanks again guys

jelder09 said:

Already pulled logic board. A couple bulging caps. Power supply is next to look for caps if I'm gonna do it i might as well change them all. And was just doing some reading about that chip.

Of course i bought it broken. I buy 5-10 macs a week broken and either fix or use for parts. Never used the forums before and thought i would post a issue and see what happens.

Click to expand...

I see...didn't realize you were someone that did this sort of thing on a regular basis.

Good luck,

- Nick