Imac G4 "option key"

moneyaffiliated · Jan 12, 2011

Hey everyone : ) I am new to this forum I just purchased my first ever Imac it's a G4 Model. 800mhz with a 80 gig hard drive I think it's the 17"inch for $30.

Well I am all excited to turn it on and use it then I get a grey screen with a folder with icons blinking in the inside. : (

The CD drive keeps on popping out also I push it in then 3 seconds later it pops right out.

I then restarted the Imac and pushed down the "option" key and it took me to another screen with a refresh icon and a right arrow icon.

Any ideas on how to get this bad boy up and running? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

chrismacguy · Jan 13, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
Hey everyone : ) I am new to this forum I just purchased my first ever Imac it's a G4 Model. 800mhz with a 80 gig hard drive I think it's the 17"inch for $30.

Well I am all excited to turn it on and use it then I get a grey screen with a folder with icons blinking in the inside. : (

The CD drive keeps on popping out also I push it in then 3 seconds later it pops right out.

I then restarted the Imac and pushed down the "option" key and it took me to another screen with a refresh icon and a right arrow icon.

Any ideas on how to get this bad boy up and running? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

What CD are you putting in the iMac?? - Also, hold down "C" on reboot if you can get a genuine Mac OS X CD to stay in the drive to boot the iMac off it (You need Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or 10.4 Tiger for that machine to be able to definitely boot)

moneyaffiliated · Jan 13, 2011

I am using Mac Os X Tiger Install. It's the 4 Cd Version.

I turn the Mac On Even before it shows any Display the CD Drive comes out. I Also Tried Puma, And Tiger Dvd Install with no luck. The Os X Tiger Install Was my last resort.

I hold down the option Key and no volumes show up. Is that because I do not have a OS installed? Is it still suppose to show the volumes and the CD Drive?

Just Bear With Me I am new to Mac's

chrismacguy · Jan 13, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
I am using Mac Os X Tiger Install. It's the 4 Cd Version.

I turn the Mac On Even before it shows any Display the CD Drive comes out. I Also Tried Puma, And Tiger Dvd Install with no luck. The Os X Tiger Install Was my last resort.

I hold down the option Key and no volumes show up. Is that because I do not have a OS installed? Is it still suppose to show the volumes and the CD Drive?

Just Bear With Me I am new to Mac's

Well it could be a dud DVD drive, can you try a different drive? (The connectors are standard I believe, so any drive that "fits" should work even if taken from a PC)

DewGuy1999 · Jan 13, 2011

Are the Tiger discs you're using the (black label) retail version?

moneyaffiliated · Jan 13, 2011

Right when I was about to give up I went ahead and took chrismacguy advice and changed the CD Rom with a old CD rom that I had on a old windows machine. Worked like a charm.

I went ahead and installed Jaguar and it says 54 minutes remaining ok the time keeps going up now lol to 1 hour and 3 min. So hopefully will finish installing.

I have the tiger installation CD's but its not booting

PS the time keeps going up is that normal post back when it's done

chrismacguy · Jan 13, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
Right when I was about to give up I went ahead and took chrismacguy advice and changed the CD Rom with a old CD rom that I had on a old windows machine. Worked like a charm.

I went ahead and installed Jaguar and it says 54 minutes remaining ok the time keeps going up now lol to 1 hour and 3 min. So hopefully will finish installing.

I have the tiger installation CD's but its not booting

PS the time keeps going up is that normal post back when it's done

It depends on the OS etc - sometimes it can. At least the machine boots off of CD, which means that the majority of the Logic Board etc is okay. Just a dud CD drive by the sounds of it

moneyaffiliated · Jan 13, 2011

I want to install Tiger. The CD boots then takes me to a blue screen with a colored circle spinning?

DewGuy1999 · Jan 13, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
I want to install Tiger. The CD boots then takes me to a blue screen with a colored circle spinning?

Spinning multi-colored circle is the wait cursor under OS X. Depending on the speed of your iMac, the amount of RAM installed and the speed of the optical drive, it can take a while to actually get fully booted from a Tiger CD. How long has the wait cursor been showing?

moneyaffiliated · Jan 13, 2011

Well I guess i did not wait that long but I left it on for a good 15 min you think I should of waited longer? My Mac has 512mb ram and 800mhz

DewGuy1999 · Jan 13, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
Well I guess i did not wait that long but I left it on for a good 15 min you think I should of waited longer? My Mac has 512mb ram and 800mhz

I don't think it should take that long, with my 1GHz, 768MB it's a quite a bit longer than a normal boot from the hard drive, but nothing like that. Maybe a minute or so.

Did you put the disk in the previously running iMac and then click on the Install OS X (or whatever it's called) on the CD causing the iMac to reboot and install?

or

Did you put the CD into the iMac and reboot, and while it was booting hold down the "C" key causing it to boot from the CD and install the OS?

In either case you could try the other method.

moneyaffiliated · Jan 13, 2011

I tried both way. I was able to get obtain me a copy of OS Tiger DVD install. Booted up fine. Guess it was just the images that faulty on the Tiger CD install. Thank everyone for your input : ).

Ps tried installing leopard but did not meet the requirements.

moneyaffiliated · Jan 14, 2011

When I access youtube the video is really choppy even the movies are too.

I think this might be a ram issue. Can anyone pinpoint me where i can buy a 1 gig stick of ram?

fhall1 · Jan 14, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
When I access youtube the video is really choppy even the movies are too.

I think this might be a ram issue. Can anyone pinpoint me where i can buy a 1 gig stick of ram?

Couple things....

- Google "leopard assist" - I used it to be able to load Leopard on my 800 MHz G4

- the 800 MHz G4 doesn't support a 1GB RAM stick - two 512MB are the max (1 GB total)

chrismacguy · Jan 14, 2011

moneyaffiliated said:
When I access youtube the video is really choppy even the movies are too.

I think this might be a ram issue. Can anyone pinpoint me where i can buy a 1 gig stick of ram?

Another, Bigger Thing - Youtube Movies, even on their lowest setting, are likely to be choppy on your iMac G4, purely due to its age (My 1.67Ghz G4 PowerBook occassionally struggles, and its pretty much maxxed) - Flash doesnt play well with the Older Macs (Anything below 1.5Ghz is generally very choppy)

iDutchman · Jan 14, 2011

chrismacguy said:
Another, Bigger Thing - Youtube Movies, even on their lowest setting, are likely to be choppy on your iMac G4, purely due to its age (My 1.67Ghz G4 PowerBook occassionally struggles, and its pretty much maxxed) - Flash doesnt play well with the Older Macs (Anything below 1.5Ghz is generally very choppy)

Well, that's where MacTubes comes in. Download it (2~ MB) and it'll run straight away. Go to settings and change video player to quicktime. DONE.
Smooth videos with no lack at all. It converts them realtime. no problem.

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Imac G4 "option key"

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