Comments on: Booting Your Apple Mac From CD, DVD, iPod or External Device

By: Vincent Roman

Vincent Roman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:36:31 +0000

Robbie – Yes that’s a good sign, either you screen, or more likely your graphics card is playing up. I would do a full backup for the drive and then take it to a mac repair place. Hopefully you are near an apple store. You don’t need to remove the drive, the Firewire Disk Mode allows you to use the laptop as an external hard drive and therefore when connected to another mac, you can back it up to your external drive, using the working mac as a conduit.

By: Robbie

Robbie — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:22:32 +0000

Vincent, when I hold the T key down, a large firewire icon starts to move across the screen, after this, what do I use to connect to another Mac?
p.s. The pixels still cover the screen, but I am still able to see the firewire icon “dance” around the screen. I’m hoping this is a good sign?
Also, would it be safe to remove my hard drive, put it in a friend’s mac, and then use an external hard drive to back up my data?
Thanks for the help!

By: Vincent Roman

Vincent Roman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:59 +0000

It sounds like it could be a graphics card issue. I would suggest booting with the T key held down, which puts the laptop into firewire disk mode, and then connecting it to another mac so you can back up the data before you do anything. Best, Vincent =

By: Robbie

Robbie — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:28:22 +0000

I have a Macbook Pro, not sure of the generation, but it was purchased in 2006.
I was going about my business just fine yesterday, when all the sudden the screen got all pixelated (for lack of better terms). I turned off the laptop manually. Now when I turn it on, the Apple image appears, but shortly after the pixels come back. The screen then turns blue (still rectangular pixels persist) and that’s that. Does this sound like something that can be fixed with the disc method you described? I won’t be able to check for a few days because I don’t have the start-up disc with me at the moment.
Does my problem seem to be hard drive related, monitor related, etc?
I will feel much better if I can at least copy all my data but if my hard drive is lost, it’ll be a very sad day :(

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:13:41 +0000

Vincent, booting into Safe Mode has been part of OS X since version 10.2
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
It is very handy for troubleshooting. You boot into safe mode by holding down the shift key at start up. Old school mac users will recognize this as the same startup command that was used to boot w/ extensions off in OS 9 and earlier.

By: Vincent Roman

Vincent Roman — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:48:26 +0000

Jeremiah – Booting into Safe Mode sounds like you are on Windows. I therefore have no clue. Sorry!

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:13:15 +0000

Hello
about a week ago I was recieving ” error start up disc is full”. I believed I had fixed this problem by rebooting in safe mode I believe. Wala! Computer ( osx laptop) fixed! For only a few days before my new problem arised….. My laptop is no longer picking up my wifi, but the other computers here are. Did I mess something up? I mean it worked fine for the week after rebooting. Any thoughts, comments….. Or dare I hope for resolutions.

By: Vincent Roman

Vincent Roman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:45:56 +0000

You won’t be able to install Windows on a G4.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:58:44 +0000

Hi, I have a G4 without mac os and no recovery disc as well. I will like to install window on it. Can anyone help me with this problem? How to do a boot up from CD. I tried C key but can’t. Anyone please guide me thanks.

By: Vincent Roman

Vincent Roman — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:46:41 +0000

Unfortunately you might be out of luck without exceedingly expensive work, and even then. Recent bouts of clicking HDs have resulted in little luck at this end, and the usual story of putting the drives in the freezer is as yet to work. The only drive scenario where it fell and I was able to recover data was when I took the drive out of the existing case and put it in to another. But in this case there was no clicking and as such, no mechanical failure. Good luck with your efforts. Vincent -

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:09:48 +0000

hi, my external hard drive feel from table to floor and now it does this clicking noise and doesnt appear on my desktop, the computer cant read it or see it. Unfortunately i have important files on this dam drive, i tried plug into other computers and nothing… any suggestions on how to recover the data and if it will be usable after that???

By: alan e

alan e — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:51:40 +0000

How would I boot from a cd from an imac windows vista partition???

By: nito

nito — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:34:10 +0000

ok Jenna
sometimes you can zap the PRAM
here is the apple article
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

sometimes you hav to zap the PRAM a few times (2-3 to be safe that it is wiped)

after zapping the PRAM try holding the C key again and see if it boots off the CD
also check out this aricle
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22017?viewlocale=en_US

it tells you how to boot off the CD another way.
good luck

By: Jenna

Jenna — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:38:34 +0000

I need help. I have a 2.5 year old imac with a 1 year old operating system. When I turn the computer on it chimes like normal, then the grey screen comes on, then the whirly comes on, then a few moments later I hear a click and the computer shuts off and the screen goes blank.

I inserted the install disk and held down the c key but the same thing happens. I am able to eject the disk and it sounds like it’s reading it, but still it’s not booting from the CD.

Any ideas, anyone? I live in a remote area and can’t take it into the mac shop.

(Nothing has happened to it, I haven’t even moved it in months.)

Thanks a lot!
Jenna

By: Vincent

Vincent — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:53:19 +0000

Steve, try holding down the option key as you boot. Make sure the DVD is in. This will then produce a menu after a short period with all the available boot devices on your system. From there, select the DVD. Hope that works, though it sounds like yo might not be holding down the C key for long enough. Also make sure the DVD is actually in when you restart. Vincent =

By: steve

steve — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:33:14 +0000

I tried to boot from the DVD. on startup Press C and slot dvd into drive. It keeps booting from the hard drive. On my first attempt this worked and when I went to close the session it asked where Iwanted to boot from and I selected the HDD. HOw do I get it to boot from the DVD again?

steve

By: b.li

b.li — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:02:39 +0000

hi, yesterday i’ve been successful in my first trial using this procedure with tiger on imac intel – core duo: 1) clone the total tiger-system with carbon copy cloner on an external hdd 2) which is connected by firewire, with 3 partitions, all formated mac-typical.
3) choose external (cloned) startvolume in systemkonfiguration and reboot. that’s all.
curiously in some context-menues the reconmmended applications are shown twice thereafter.
can anybody tell me, how this can be avoided? – thanks beforehand!

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:38:48 +0000

Hi,

I have an iBook G4 that went dead on me about a month ago. Every time I try to re-start it, the blank silver screen would appear and go no further. I read some websites that said to reboot using the CD while holding down the c key. I tried that but my cpu just spit the CD back out after a couple of seconds. So still, all I get is the dreaded silver screen.

I’m thinking of taking it to a Mac store because I have pretty much no knowledge on how to handle this kind of thing. But I don’t want to spend a hundred dollars or whatever to have it fixed. Maybe they’ll look at for a couple of minutes and figure out the problem though, and not charge me…?

My question is, what is the best alternative?

Thanks,
Steve

By: Vincent

Vincent — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:09:28 +0000

I hate to ask a silly question but has the device been formatted and had OSX installed on it? If not then it wont show up. To install OSX on it you will require another machine, which point you might as well use one machine or the other as a firewire target disk.

Assuming you are ahead fo the game, you need to follow on with these instructions for booting a PPC from a USB 2.0 device:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384&lsrc=osxh

Bare in mind, that if you are on USB 1.0 it is going to be incredibly slow.

Hope this helps. Best Vincent =

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:04:20 +0000

Got a question here… I’m trying to revive an 12″ powerbook and the Optical drive is shot. when i startup the computer now, i get th old flashing question mark and finder logo. I bought an LG external ’slim’ drive, so i can boot and reinstall OSX. BUT, when i hold down opt on startup, the drive isn’t found. i’m not sure if it’s because the USB ports don’t work until after startup? kinda lost. any thoughts?