My powerbook g4 doesnt see my hard drive?

twitch99 · Dec 24, 2011

I bought my power book g4 off of a friend it had a dead hard drive so i bought a new hard drive "HTS424040M9AT00" in particulate but when i go to install OS x 10.4 tiger when it says select destination to store OS x or something (i'm new to mac) nothing shows up. I've tried looking for it in disk utilities but it just shows the optical drive. I've also tried resetting the PRAM and NVRAM. Nothing I'm not sure it the hard drive is dead or not (hopefully not

) Can you help me?

- Twitch99

Kevriano · Dec 24, 2011

Have you formatted the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? You will need to if you are going to load any Mac OS to it. All drives come formatted as NTFS as standard (pretty much).

twitch99 · Dec 24, 2011

reply

I'm not sure can you tell me how?

Kevriano · Dec 24, 2011

Ok, so it's not being seen in disk utility on the install disc? Very strange. I suspect that there may be a connection issue then.
Normally an NTFS drive will show, but be greyed out, ready to be reformatted.

harryb2448 · Dec 24, 2011

How are you booting from the Tiger DVD, and is it a black coloured full retail install DVD and not a silver grey model specific disc? Pop the DVD in the optical drive, reboot and hold down 'C' immediately after the chime. When loaded, leave installer and go to Utilities in the Menu Bar > Disk Utility > Erase and format as Kevriano advised.

Back to the installer and run Tiger. Being a laptop, optical drives also have a high failure rate. Buying computers from friends often ends the friendship alas.

Be very careful buying computers with dead hard drives.

dtravis7 · Dec 24, 2011

You are saying you booted from the OSX DVD and ran Disk Utility from the Utilities drop down and the new drive is not showing up there?

Did you install the ribbon cable on the new drive correctly? All pins in the correct holes? This is a brand new 2.5" hard drive and IDE (ATA)??

Did the ribbon cable look damaged at all? Is the other end where the cable goes to the Logic board ok?

yamaha · Dec 24, 2011

Not meaning to jack the thread or anything but I just purchased a Western Digital IDE drive for my G4. Will I need to reformat the hard drive or can I just install the drive and put the OS X disk in at boot it up.

dtravis7 · Dec 24, 2011

yamaha said:
Not meaning to jack the thread or anything but I just purchased a Western Digital IDE drive for my G4. Will I need to reformat the hard drive or can I just install the drive and put the OS X disk in at boot it up.

OSX needs a drive formatted in a native apple format as the boot drive. Just do with Disk Utility what was said above and all will be fine.

yamaha · Dec 24, 2011

harryb2448 said:
How are you booting from the Tiger DVD, and is it a black coloured full retail install DVD and not a silver grey model specific disc? Pop the DVD in the optical drive, reboot and hold down 'C' immediately after the chime. When loaded, leave installer and go to Utilities in the Menu Bar > Disk Utility > Erase and format as Kevriano advised.

Back to the installer and run Tiger. Being a laptop, optical drives also have a high failure rate. Buying computers from friends often ends the friendship alas.

Be very careful buying computers with dead hard drives.

Do you continue holding c when you reformat the drive? Or is there a certain point when you release it.

dtravis7 · Dec 24, 2011

No, you hold C right after the Startup Sound till the computer starts to boot from the OSX DVD then let it go. When the Gray screen with the Apple appears let go!

yamaha · Dec 24, 2011

Thanks!

twitch99 · Dec 27, 2011

listen

Ok guys it shows up on my windows it works i cant format it but it works my mac cant recognize it because its not formatted right? right. now since i need to initialize the disk in disk management so i can not format it right? right. so WHAT THE HECK DO I DO? this is very frustrating.

twitch99 · Dec 27, 2011

moar listten

OK i start it up from boot disk it goes fine it doesnt show up in disk utility but it DOES WORK then if i go to single user mode to format it it says there is no drive to format *** AND THEN IF I TRY TO VERIFY DISK PERMISSIONS TO ERASE THE OPTICAL DRIVE NOT THE DVD IT SAYS "NO VALID PACKAGES!"

Kevriano · Dec 28, 2011

twitch99 said:
OK i start it up from boot disk it goes fine it doesnt show up in disk utility but it DOES WORK then if i go to single user mode to format it it says there is no drive to format *** AND THEN IF I TRY TO VERIFY DISK PERMISSIONS TO ERASE THE OPTICAL DRIVE NOT THE DVD IT SAYS "NO VALID PACKAGES!"

Then the drive is not connected properly, or there is a more serious issue with the Mac.
Why can't you format it in Windows, have you tried?

twitch99 · Dec 28, 2011

I cannot format it because it can not initialize disk so it will not show up as a local disk or hard drive so i cant format it and i don't know if the connection ribbon has a problem or not i suspect that the drive needs formatted but I'm not sure.

Kevriano · Dec 28, 2011

So you can see it in Windows, but not do anything with it, is that correct? And likewise it doesn't even show in Disk Utility?
I would suggest that it's dead drive then.

twitch99 · Dec 28, 2011

Youre probably right and yes it doesnt