iMac G4 - help needed please

[zackkmac]

Hi all - last week I scored a 20" iMac G4 for $150 - woooo! I'm looking to reinstall Leopard but running into some issues.

My first attempt was to run the installer off of a USB drive. Not my first rodeo doing it this way via Open Firmware on a PPC Mac and I'm fairly confident the USB is set up correctly. It's partitioned as Apple Partition Map, and was a full image ISO restored to the USB using Disk Utility. It seems to show up in OS X just like the DVD would. But I have tried as many Open Firmware commands as I can find online and the farthest I get is the "prohibited" sign.

So, I gave up and bought a Leopard DVD from eBay - a single-disc version labeled "Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD - Version 10.5" - and the retail box shows it's a Family Pack version. But the computer just reads it for a minute and spits it back out. Could be a drive issue, I honestly cannot find another DVD/CD to try, but wondering if any of you know if maybe I bought the wrong type of install DVD?

Also, from what I've found it looks like the iMac G5 displays are plug-and-play replacements for these G4's, I've seen a couple of people claiming they've done this. Mine has a few dark spots so I was considering this route but just curious if anyone here can comment on it. I *think* the LCD I need is part number 661-3609 (early 20" G5) but any advice is appreciated.

 

[Forest Expertise]

Hi all - last week I scored a 20" iMac G4 for $150 - woooo! I'm looking to reinstall Leopard but running into some issues.

My first attempt was to run the installer off of a USB drive. Not my first rodeo doing it this way via Open Firmware on a PPC Mac and I'm fairly confident the USB is set up correctly. It's partitioned as Apple Partition Map, and was a full image ISO restored to the USB using Disk Utility. It seems to show up in OS X just like the DVD would. But I have tried as many Open Firmware commands as I can find online and the farthest I get is the "prohibited" sign.

So, I gave up and bought a Leopard DVD from eBay - a single-disc version labeled "Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD - Version 10.5" - and the retail box shows it's a Family Pack version. But the computer just reads it for a minute and spits it back out. Could be a drive issue, I honestly cannot find another DVD/CD to try, but wondering if any of you know if maybe I bought the wrong type of install DVD?

Using a Powerbook G4, I recall having success with https://archive.org/details/snowleopardsinglelayerdvd or you could try #39 on this page: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc If you can burn DVDs, I would try these.

 

[zackkmac]

Using a Powerbook G4, I recall having success with https://archive.org/details/snowleopardsinglelayerdvd or you could try #39 on this page: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc If you can burn DVDs, I would try these.

Thanks for sharing! Was thinking I would try my own burned copies but then again this is the only computer I have with an optical drive, so if it's (potentially) failing at reading then it may not write either. I'm considering buying a Firewire DVD drive as it looks like it should be able to boot from that, but hoping to get confirmation that the Leopard DVD type I bought should be the right one to use before I spend more $$.

 

[Forest Expertise]

Thanks for sharing! Was thinking I would try my own burned copies but then again this is the only computer I have with an optical drive, so if it's (potentially) failing at reading then it may not write either. I'm considering buying a Firewire DVD drive as it looks like it should be able to boot from that, but hoping to get confirmation that the Leopard DVD type I bought should be the right one to use before I spend more $$.

I remember holding down the option key (and maybe something else - hard to remember) during boot helped reset a Powerbook optical drive that acted up. But sometimes once the drive is dead, it is dead. Hope that isn't the case with yours. If it is, your Firewire plan is smart.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

If you happen to have an external usb DVD drive, that should be bootable as well.