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ero2 · Feb 8, 2006, 01:04 AM

So I bought a 20in CoreDuo, and returned the 20" apple LCD and am getting ready to return via fedex the powermac I ordered. The problem is, I thought I would be able to press option when booting, boot the powermac onto the imac screen and then reinstall the OS from the pm DVDs onto the powermac, but it appears I can't. So, am I missing something, or do I just have to send apple a pm G5 with a blank HD? Will they even take it back that way?

I know it is so stupid but I didn't even think it would be an issue before returning the PM.

icruise · Feb 8, 2006, 02:38 AM

Well, I'm not entirely sure what it is you are asking, but allow me to guess. You originally bought a PowerMac with a 20" LCD but decided to get the 20" iMac instead. You already sent back the 20" LCD and were about to reinstall the OS on the PowerMac when you found that you couldn't connect the PowerMac to the iMac to use it as a screen as you thought. Thus, you are left with a PowerMac with no OS installed and no monitor to hook up to it, so you can't reinstall the OS. Is that right?

There's no way (no easy way, anyway) to connect the PowerMac to the iMac that way, so I guess your only options are to either send it back as it is and hope that it won't matter or call Apple, explain the situation, and ask them what you should do.

ero2 · Feb 8, 2006, 03:23 AM

yup tp the T, what I am trying is, I created a 125 gig disk image which I mounted, now I am CCCing the bootabel backup of the powermac to my disk image, then hooking the powermac up to the imac and trying to clone the disc image to the internal zeroed HD. This should work I believe....

hickey · Feb 8, 2006, 01:05 PM

Icruise is right, call apple and find out what to do.

JKT · Feb 8, 2006, 02:16 PM

The PPC based macs can't be used to boot the Intel based macs and vice versa (which is also true for external drives formatted by one or the other) due to the differing partition map used on the drives by the two processor architectures.

Personally, I don't think Apple would care if you didn't re-install as they would probably wipe the drive and start again before offering it as a refurb anyway - you could just claim you wiped the drive for security reasons and forgot to re-install.

mduell · Feb 8, 2006, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

The PPC based macs can't be used to boot the Intel based macs and vice versa (which is also true for external drives formatted by one or the other) due to the differing partition map used on the drives by the two processor architectures.

Source?

JKT · Feb 8, 2006, 04:02 PM

Inferred from this article here and other things I have read around the web about being unable to boot from externals formatted from PPC macs... something of a support headache for techs apparently.

quiklee · Feb 8, 2006, 04:20 PM

this is an interesting problem!

hickey · 07:16 PM

what about an external drive with data and media on it, it can still be read from and written to right? just not booted from?

toddtmw · Feb 8, 2006, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Source?

How about Apple's Knowledgebase:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303118

Important: If you format the Intel-based Mac's volume using a PowerPC-based Mac, Disk Utility will successfully format the disk but you will not be able to start the Intel-based Mac from it.