# G5 Notebook... no cd drive



## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

Hi all. My wife was just gifted by family with a G5 Notebook. I have (almost) zero experience with Macs, and tried to view some photos on her machine. The only removable media drive in this thing is a DVD drive of some sort...

A) could NOT view the pictures from a CDR

B) could NOT install the software to view the pix

How in #^*!#* do you load ANY software onto this machine with no floppy or cd drive...??!!?!? (There does seem to be some kind of memory stick slot, but I'm not sure what it really is. There is also at least one USB socket, but I have no external drives to use that way...

Please help me show my wife these xmas pictures from last year... And help me figure out how to install software (and to copy things off) -- hopefully without having to BUY any new hardware...!

Thanks


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## emoxley (Jan 6, 2004)

The dvd should act as cd rom also. New machine is probably OSX?
You said pics are a year old. May just not work with OSX, for some reason. I don't know much about OSX, but it may not work with older stuff. Maybe someone with more knowledge about OSX will chime in.............
Good luck!


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## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

I expected the DVD to do this, too, but it didn't even recognize the disk in the drive. It's not OSX, but OS9, and the photos are just jpegs now -- presumably as common in the Mac universe as in that of PCs.

Anyway, I just remembered that my Zip drive is USB, so I'm going to try that. Same issue still remains, though -- how to install ANY software on a machine with a DVD drive that doesn't read CDRs as the only external input mode available...? I need to figure this out even if/when I can get the pix up through my Zip drive.

Thanks again, any and all with a CLUE to offer...


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## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

Hmm. The Mac cannot read anything made on a PC... I thought this had been resolved a long time ago, but apparently not. The only way I can figure out to get these pictures into the hands of a Mac person is to email them, so that's what I'll do.

Isn't there any way around this? I know about "Virtual PC" software, but I really don't want to buy anything for this problem.


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## emoxley (Jan 6, 2004)

If the pics are jpegs, it shouldn't matter that they were made on a pc. A mac will read more pc stuff, than a pc will read mac stuff. Once when my iMac quit recognizing cds, I went to the system folder, then to the preferences folder, then dragged the "system prefs" to the trash and rebooted. Then all was fine. If that doesn't work, go to www.apple.com and look in the downloads section, and find the newest drivers for the dvd player (OS9), and install them.
Another possibility is that QuickTime may be corrupted. Macs use QT to view pics. QT Viewer is a free download too. It's also on the system disc, from which you can do a custom install.
You can do a clean install from system disc, and it will replace the system folder with a new one, which would be a new install of QT and other extensions..........
Good luck! Keep us posted?


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## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

johnwill -- Yes, I am running XP but in FAT32 mode.

emoxley -- Thank you. That's exactly what I needed to know. Working with my wife's Mac seems to me like silicon-based life trying to understand carbon-based forms... What really had me worried was that the G3 wouldn't run that ArcSoft installation program which is explicitly designed for both types of system.

I'm hoping that doing a clean install is a reasonably obvious process..? Find the setup files and just run them? I have absolutely no understanding of the Motorola architecture or any of that level stuff.

Thanks again, and I will post back.


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## zoombini (Aug 18, 2003)

Run the clean install by holding down the C key when booting up. This will boot from CD. Should be obvious where to go from there.

I can't understand why a new G5 notebook would have OS 9 on it??? Are u sure it's not dual-bootable with X?? Check for 2 different system folders in the HD.

The DVD drive should double as a CD drive aswell. Check the Apple System Profiler and see what type of drive u have. A computer without a CD drive, would currently be worthless. BTW, no Macs have shipped with a floppy drive in years now, as the media format is all but dead. Memory sticks are big in the Mac world due to the reliance on USB ports these days.


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## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

Sorry. I mis-typed. This is a G3, not G5. It was given to my wife by her brother when he bought a G5. I do not have any installation disks for it. It has OS9.2.2 on it, to be precise.

I did as advised re trashing the system preferences, re-booted it -- and now it is frozen in hell... All I have on the screen is that little watch, the time icon (top of screen) and the HD icon which is darkened as if "selected." Nothing is happening at all, after half an hour wait. I cannot get the DVD drawer to open, and can't even figure out how to turn the !#$^*+ thing OFF.

Have I wrecked my wofe's new toy?!?


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## akad (Jul 31, 2004)

No, not yet 

The first thing I would do is contact your wife's brother and see if he has any Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, or Powerbook installation CD's. If you can get a hold of any, then put one in, hold down the C key, and start up the comp.


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## downriver (Dec 11, 2004)

Hi, and thanks. I did find the installation / restore disk after all. But the original OS was v. 8, with downloaded upgrades to 9.2.2. The last of those upgrades is on the machine to run. I was going to use the restore disk, but worried that the OS8 on that disk would create yet another layer of issues, i.e., rebuilding those updates.

But I have gotten past that original problem with the "zap the pram" routine. I had tried that before, but apparently didn't hold the keys down long enough -- needed to wait through 5 beeps, but then it worked. Sorta. At least I seem to have a full desktop running now, and have successfully re-booted a couple of times. Moving on...

What I have now is that when I try to run the IE browser and get to email/web, it tells me to shut down running apps for lack of memory. I can't see any other apps that are running, but I haven't been able to get, and stay, online with it. This is a real problem in that the primary reason we have the machine is for my wife to have internet access on her own computer. I don't now remember the precise error message, but the thing shut itself down...

And going back to the original problem -- trying to view jpeg files on a CD ROM made on an XP machine, I am afraid to even try that again... My SWAG (scientific wild assed guess...) is that I need to put those files alone on the CD, not inside a Windows folder. Does that make sense? The machine froze up originally when I simply tried to read the CD. I am told that Macs will read jpegs, but I'm speculating that the Windows-generated folder is "confusing" the Mac, can't see through the wrapper to get to the contents.

Thanks


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