G4 DA problems with OS X installation...

[bigD]

Hey all - as you might know, I've been enjoying my 1.5GHz DA G4 running 10.4 for about a month now, but I've encountered a problem.

The HDD began making a repeating griding sound. It's kind of hard to explain, but basically the computer will pause with the spinning ball for about 20 seconds while it does this, then go back to normal. It does it during boot, and again while trying to run the certain apps, including the disk diagnostic tool. Now, this did occur when I first got the computer while trying to install 10.4, but I restarted the installation and it went away. I didn't think about it again until today, when it came back. I think the HDD is beginning to crash. Not too big of an issue, since I have a spare 40GB drive to use.

But here's the problem - that very same 10.4 install DVD that worked flawlessly is now always telling me that I need to restart my computer. It doesn't matter if any HDD is connected at all, booting to the DVD just results in a screen that tells me I need to reboot. So now that I can't boot to the DVD, I have no way of installing 10.4 on the new drive.

Does anyone know of a way around this?

 

[bluekatt]

getting a set of install cd roms of tiger

 

[alk]

Uninstall the failing hard drive, install your new drive, and try again. My guess would be that something about that drive (possibly being unresponsive on the ATA bus) is causing your installer DVD to KP.

Peace,

Drew

 

[MacMan]

Make sure the main boot hard drive is set to Master by checking the jumpers. Having a boot drive set to Slave can cause problems (I once had my G4's drive set accidentally to Slave and it caused similar issues).

 

[bigD]

Yeah, I checked the jumpers and they seem fine. Incidentally, the installer DVD does it even when no hard drive is attached at all. I tried zapping the PRAM as well. Interesting.

 

[bigD]

Welp - I figured out my problem, and it was my flashed nVidia 6200. The system booted into the installer just fine when I put the stock GeForce AGP card back in. The 6200 was fine once 10.4 was fully installed.

 

[madmax_2069]

yea i dont think that card was supported till 10.4.3, so you would need a 10.4.3 install CD/DVD to be able to boot and install tiger with the 6200 installed.

i think the info about that is also on themacelite.com

 

[Bunsen]

I'm also having problems installing.

My *ahem* backup 10.3 CDs aren't booting; 10.2 is but there are "problems installing the software; please try again". I suspect a flaky CD drive. I tried my hard-rubbish-day Pioneer DVDR, but that doesn't appear to be bootable. Next attempt will be a slower CD drive, because that seemed to help last time on the beige.
Dunno if it's relevant or not but the drive I'm installing to is 160GB. I've formatted the space that can be seen (132GB) into four partitions.

I do have a PCI ATA controller and a SCSI card, but I don't know if they are supported under OS X or not, so I haven't tried to install them yet.

Right now DiskWarrior is having a go at repairing the 10.2 HD out of my beige.