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Adding second hard drive to G5 Quad
I bought a refurbished Mac G5 Quad from Apple.
I tried to install a second sata internal drive on the mac to create a dual boot system. After restarting the mac, I did not see the second drive anywhere in disk utilities or on the desktop.
I then removed the original hard drive that came with the Mac and put the new drive in it’s place, to check if the drive and cables were working. When I started up the mac only the new harddrive I only got a blinking question mark. Is that because there’s nothing on the new drive so the mac doesn’t know where to go for start-up? Or is there something wrong with the new drive?
Can someone walk me through checking if this new drive is good? Would I boot drom the OSX 10.4.8 CD? then set up the drive? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Greg -
3 Replies
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The question mark means it sees the drive but there is nothing on it.
I suggest putting your OS X CD in and re-starting the computer with that. (If you can’t eject the drive, restart the computer while holding the mouse-button down. Then restart again holding the “C” key.)
Once the CD boots, find Disc Utility in there. Format the drive, then shut down the computer, put the original drive back in its place and move the new drive down a space. Now that it’s formatted, hopefully the computer will see it properly. If it doesn’t it’s possible there’s something wrong with the cables in that bay.
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Thanks Jeff-
If this works, and I’m trying to create a dual boot system, would I then install the OSX files on this drive as well?
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Ah, didn’t hear about the dual-boot.
Yes, at the step where I say “format the drive” then go on and instal OS X onto it. Once you’re up and running, shut it down and put the 2nd drive in. I’m pretty sure you can then go into the System Preferences of either system and select the “Startup Disk” icon to restart as the other system.
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