Post #2415545

2026-05-11 23:06 UTC

A close friend just asked me to recover data from a Mac. No problem I said; it turns out it's a PowerMac G5. I used to have one myself - 20+ years ago. I don't have any DVD-R media, so what's the best USB boot environment for these things? YDL is dead, so Linux looks... tricky.

Replies (6)

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party 2026-05-11 23:19

If we dial the clock back to 2016, it turns out that Ubuntu 16.04 has an ISO that supposedly works with OpenFirmware's USB boot: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/16.04/release/

Open ##3148377
@WideEyedCurious@mstdn.social 2026-05-11 23:19

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party Does it have a FireWire port?

Open ##3148381
@mhoye@cosocial.ca 2026-05-11 23:44

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party Strongly recommending you take a drive image with ddrescue and work on that image instead of directly on the hardware, if you have that option.

Open ##3148386
@wilson@nfld.me 2026-05-12 12:37

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party Oh wait powermac is a desktop isn't it - so I suppose you'd need a 3.5" enclosure/toaster for the drive.

Open ##3148387
@wilson@nfld.me 2026-05-12 12:36

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party One option is to get a 2.5" hdd enclosure, take out the drive and put it in the enclosure, and connect it to another mac, or even a PC running a HFS browser (or with a HFS driver installed). Another is to use target disk mode (hold T during power on), but you'd need to connect the mac to another computer using FireWire, sadly. You can also see if the mac boots into recovery mode (hold R during power on) and use tools - terminal to run copy commands to an attached FAT usb drive.

Open ##3148388
@joany@mastodon.illumos.cafe 2026-05-13 14:32

@thomrstrom@triangletoot.party NetBSD might run OSX 10.5 defently, OpenBSD, voidlinux (if the ppc repository is still around), Adélie Linux , T2 linux Or maybe Debian Ports I have tried a few on my Macmini G4, PowerBook G3 and PowerMac G5 ( i like PowerPC) But mount the sata disk in another computer?

Open ##3148389