{"id":3441,"date":"2011-07-27T10:30:29","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T15:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2019-11-25T20:10:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T01:10:50","slug":"the-g5-imac-is-dead-long-live-the-g5-imac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/07\/27\/the-g5-imac-is-dead-long-live-the-g5-imac\/","title":{"rendered":"The G5 iMac is DEAD! Long Live the G5 iMac!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iDead\"<\/a>This is a followup to last week’s article<\/a> where I performed an autopsy<\/em> on a six-year-old iMac<\/strong> that had a number of ruptured capacitors. Like a low-rent Frankenstein<\/strong> movie, I ended up transplanting the brains from one computer into the body of another, and I ended up learning something new!<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, maybe not something new as the world is concerned, but new to me!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Pictured above is the G5 iMac lying face down with its back panel removed. In the right hand corner is the SATA hard drive that originally came with the machine when it was shipped from Apple. Apple moved from the older IDE or PATA hard drives to SATA when G5s came out. I took the hard drive above out of the iMac and slapped it into a dual G5 tower from 2004 that was sitting around idle. Poof!<\/strong> It was as if the old iMac was back with all of its programs and all of its user’s preferences and eccentricities but in a different body. That would have been the end of it, but I felt leery about the computer’s owner forging ahead with a six-year-old hard drive. Hard drives are only supposed to last about five years and this one was well used. It was only a matter of time before it gave up the ghost. Fortunately, SATA hard drives are easy to find so a 500 GB Western Digital model was picked up from a computer super store. I got the drive the next day, slapped it into the G5 tower, and nothing happened.<\/p>\n

No window came up asking if I wanted to initialize or eject the drive.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I launched Apple’s Disk Utility<\/strong> which will usually show something, and it showed nothing.<\/p>\n

I thought that it was a bad drive. The store sells these sort of drives by the caseload, and maybe I ended up with a bad one. Maybe somebody at Quality Control was asleep at the wheel. I put it in another computer, and it showed up. Weird. I formatted the drive thinking that maybe there was some PC\/Windows Voodoo involved that the G5 didn’t like. I gave it a nice Mac-happy format and popped it back into the tower. Nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

I turned to the internet and typed something like“G5 fails to recognize hard drive”<\/em> and this article<\/a> in Apple Support Communities turned up. It turns out that the G5 tower was one of the first G5 towers and it didn’t play nice with SATA 2 drives. It couldn’t handle the speed and preferred the slower SATA 1 drives. Was there a solution? As it turns out, the solution lies in the jumper pins on the hard drive. I had to play with them on the old IDE hard drives setting the drive to either MASTER or SLAVE, but I’ve been lucky enough not to have to worry about them with the SATA drives I’ve dealt with. I thought the jumper pins were like a vestigial organ on SATA drives or something Windows-centric<\/em> I’d never have to deal with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As far as this Western Digital hard drive is concerned,\u00c2\u00a0 the jumper is placed on pins 5 and 6 hobbling the drive to SATA 1 speed and enabling the G5 tower to read it.<\/p>\n

It worked. I did a fresh system install; migrated the programs, settings and preferences from the old hard drive to the new; reactivated licenses as were necessary, and the user was back in business!<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The best way to recycle a Mac is to re-use it. For the past few years I’ve been getting my hands dirty under the hoods of old Macs swapping parts and performing upgrades. This is a new category that I will post to every now and then about mostly Apple computers. Due to my love of computers, my lack of funds and the wealth of information easily available on the internet, I’ve taken it upon myself to become my own fix-it man. I am not the handiest guy in the world, but, thanks to research on the internet, I’ve been able to cobble together and hot rod a few Macs into completely viable machines. It gives me a real Mechanics Illustrated<\/em> sense of accomplishment, and puts me in touch with my dear departed Dad.<\/p>\n

\"Dad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a followup to last week’s article where I performed an autopsy on a six-year-old iMac that had a number of ruptured capacitors. Like a low-rent Frankenstein movie, I ended up transplanting the brains from one computer into the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[317,518],"tags":[295,512,535,531,530,537,514,296,532,533,534,536],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-joes-garage","tag-apple","tag-bad-capacitors","tag-fix","tag-g5","tag-g5-fails-to-recognize-hard-drive","tag-hard-drive","tag-imac","tag-mac","tag-recycle","tag-repurpose","tag-reuse","tag-sata"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-Tv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3360,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/07\/20\/bad-caps-talking-bout-bad-caps\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":0},"title":"Bad Caps! Talking ‘Bout Bad Caps!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"July 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently I was given the task of hopefully resuscitating a 17\" G5 iMac that is roughly 6 years old, and, in classic fashion, was working just fine until something weird started to happen according to its user. The user is a graphic designer who got the Mac new and used\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/back-off.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/back-off.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/back-off.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46749,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/12\/30\/reviving-an-old-imac-elementary-my-dear-watson\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":1},"title":"Reviving an Old iMac? Elementary, My Dear Watson","author":"Joe","date":"December 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Similar to my Mac Minty which I have written about here and here, I have brought new life back to an otherwise ignored iMac in work with the installation of a Linux operating system. This time the Linux Distro I have chosen is Elementary. The 2013 iMac was a beast\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/elementary-screenshot-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/elementary-screenshot-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/elementary-screenshot-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/elementary-screenshot-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/elementary-screenshot-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20850,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2016\/07\/11\/swimming-in-the-low-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":2},"title":"Swimming in the Low End","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"July 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I just purchased a used 2009 Mac Pro to use as a replacement for my recently departed dual G5 Mac Pro which I also purchased used. It served me well as a graphic design and digital illustration production machine, and that is what I intend for this new acquisition. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/optical-tray.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/optical-tray.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/optical-tray.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2353,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/03\/31\/the-fabulous-image-capture-or-the-scanner-software-you-never-knew-you-had\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":3},"title":"The Fabulous Image Capture or The Scanner Software You Never Knew You Had","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"March 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This one's for Bill. Let's see what I mean: So you say your brand new iMac which you scrimped and saved for is not playing nicely with that old, (until recently) reliable scanner. You say all you wanted was a new computer that was spiffy, responsive and would give you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/clawrence.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":46675,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/12\/17\/my-half-assed-imac\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":4},"title":"My Half-Assed iMac","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"December 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been tinkering with my Mac Minty which I also refer to as my \u201cHalf-assed iMac.\u201d It\u2019s a 2012 Mac mini running Linux Mint, bolted to the back of a 21.5\" Asus VS228H-P monitor with a $9 VESA mount adapter I grabbed off Amazon. Originally I had a small VGA\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/half-assed-imac.jpg?fit=800%2C1067&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/half-assed-imac.jpg?fit=800%2C1067&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/half-assed-imac.jpg?fit=800%2C1067&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/half-assed-imac.jpg?fit=800%2C1067&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11689,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/02\/05\/more-thoughts-on-the-hackintosh\/","url_meta":{"origin":3441,"position":5},"title":"More thoughts on the Hackintosh","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"February 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I have successfully built a Hackintosh or, as the folks at Tonymacx86 call it, a CustoMac Mini, and the more I think of it, the more it makes sense. Mac aficionados on various forums and websites have been wishing for a mid-tower Mac that would be beefier than the entry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computers"","block_context":{"text":"Computers","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/computers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"upgradable","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/upgradable.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/upgradable.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/upgradable.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}