Comment 36 for bug 126337

A workaround for my Rev-B 20" 1.8ghz G5 iMac which doesn't get cd detection, involved the use of two cdrom/dvd drives to get Hardy Alpha installed.

I attached a firewire cdrom and burnt two copies of the install iso and placed them in each drive. I booted from the internal drive by holding down the "C" key, and the installer starts. Once hardy gets to the point of not being able to detect the internal drive, install picks right up from the firewire drive which also has a copy of the alpha in it.

In the end, I have no internal cdrom detection, but at least the alpha is installed. Note that I couldn't actually just boot from the external firewire cdrom drive, so I had to do this tricky dual-disk setup initially.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't seem like G5 thermal support is working, so the exhaust fans just scream making alpha testing unbearable. Bug filed - maybe no g5_defconfig? Anyway, that's a different bug post.

I'll try the modprobe techniques to see if I can get the cdrom detected post-install.