New (to me) Power Macintosh G4 (PCI) - no drive detected, no System Restore disc, how to boot from burned CD-R?

@GamesMissed

@GamesMissed

New Tinkerer
Mar 28, 2025
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gamesthatimissed.com
(First off, if this is a duplicate or there's an easy answer to this and I'm just not seeing it, please feel free to point me to a link.)

I'm trying to get a Power Macintosh G4 tower (this model: https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerMac1,2) working. I bought it a few weeks back, swapped in a new PRAM battery, and have gotten it to the point where it boots to the blinking "question mark" folder icon. It came to me with an aftermarket 500 GB IDE drive, but that was either wiped by the previous owner or has given up the ghost.

I'd like to try booting from a CD installer, either OS 9 or 10, or an Apple Hardware Test disc. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the discs that originally came with the machine. I've tried burning an .iso to a CD, and CD drive shows activity as if it's trying to start to read the disc, but never gets farther than regular repeated noises.

Also possibly confounding the problem are that:
  • I don't have a USB Apple keyboard (only ADB), and I'm not 100% certain that the generic 104-key USB keyboard that I'm using is being recognized properly to allow me to choose to boot to a CD or the boot manager in any event.
  • I don't even know whether these ancient CD-Rs I'm using are writing correctly. I'm writing the discs on a Linux PC, and can't read them back once written. It looks like they're not what I think of as a "normal" partition map ("file" run on the .iso returns "Apple Hardware Test v1.2.iso: Apple Driver Map, blocksize 2048, blockcount 15360 ... etc. etc.)
  • I have never worked with a G4 Mac before in my life.
Is there a way to get images for the correct system restore discs? If so, do I need to burn them from another Macintosh in order to have them write correctly (I can likely use a relative's Mac for that)?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
C

ClassicHasClass

Tinkerer
Aug 30, 2022
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www.floodgap.com
No, any system can burn the .iso to disc, and the USB keyboard shouldn't make a difference (though avoid connecting it through a hub). Are you sure the optical drive is in working order?

A few things you can try. Hold down Command-Option-O-F on the USB keyboard as you turn it on. When the Open Firmware screen appears, release the keys.

- Try typing "boot cd" . What does it say?
- If that fails, try "dir cd:,\" (get them in the right order: c d colon comma backslash) and see what gets listed.
 
@GamesMissed

@GamesMissed

New Tinkerer
Mar 28, 2025
7
1
1
gamesthatimissed.com
ClassicHasClass said:
No, any system can burn the .iso to disc, and the USB keyboard shouldn't make a difference (though avoid connecting it through a hub). Are you sure the optical drive is in working order?

A few things you can try. Hold down Command-Option-O-F on the USB keyboard as you turn it on. When the Open Firmware screen appears, release the keys.

- Try typing "boot cd" . What does it say?
- If that fails, try "dir cd:,\" (get them in the right order: c d colon comma backslash) and see what gets listed.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I can get into Open Firmware (let me know if any of the version information would be helpful), and I tried the commands you suggested. If I type "boot cd", it returns

Code: 
DISK-LABEL :  read of block0 failed
can't OPEN:  cd
ok

It returns the same error if I try "dir cd:,\" as well. I turned off the system and re-seated the ribbon cable at both ends, but it hasn't made a difference. The drive has power (eject works, of course, and it seems to be trying to spin up?), but clearly something's wrong.

[Edit:] Oh, and I popped in a regular CD-ROM, a MacAddict disc that came in the box with the G4, to see whether that could be read. It still gives the same error.

I have exactly one IDE optical drive still lying around, but it's a DVD drive. I can try swapping that in over the weekend to see whether it makes a difference.

This was very helpful in giving me a direction in which to proceed. Thanks again.
 
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