iMac G4 help

[bluestar14]

i have an ol' iMac G4 that i had to wipe the hard drive of(with disk utility on an other mac)because it wouldn't boo(i thinka file got corrupted) i have none of the restore disks, cause i got it from a friend(we aren't in touch anymore) so what can i do, the highest it'll run is tiger, and they don't sell that anymore....is the firmware affected?( as i can't boot from my mac os 9 disk i have from an older mac)

 

[DoFoT9]

firmware will still be fine. im afraid you will have to find a tiger disc off ebay or craigslist etc.

 

[bluestar14]

.....what about that os 9 disk?

 

[DoFoT9]

.....what about that os 9 disk?

oh sorry forgot to address that, what type of g4 is it?

for most g4s, if it came with OSX, then it couldnt support OS9.

 

[jodelli]

(with disk utility on an other mac)

What might that other Mac be? You could do a restore via Target mode and Firewire, providing the OS and other Mac are compatible with that method.

 

[bluestar14]

i don't know what it came with, but here are the specs:
iMac G4:
700mhz G4 processor
512mb RAM
Not a Super disk drive but a regular cd/rw burner

 

[bluestar14]

the other mac isn't mine, its a friend 2hr away, its a macbook pro with snow leopard, it came with tiger, right before leopard came out..

 

[jodelli]

I guess you'll need a Tiger or Panther disk then, non machine specific.

 

[bluestar14]

i heard they cost a lot.. but why won't that os 9 disk boot?

 

[dvince2]

i don't know what it came with, but here are the specs:
iMac G4:
700mhz G4 processor
512mb RAM
Not a Super disk drive but a regular cd/rw burner

It should be able to run OS9. I have a similar iMac (see my sig), and it shipped with OS9 and 10.1.
Are the OS9 disks you're using restore disks from another computer or a retail copy? It may also require a minimum version (like 9.2 or something).

do you have another Mac / any other OS X's laying around?

 

[bluestar14]

well, its a retail disk, but no other macs with os x lying around

 

[jodelli]

I would have thought it could use OS 9 or 9.1 since a G4 Power Mac can.

 

[bluestar14]

i read somewhere that the grey screen comes because its firmware isn't high enough..

 

[dvince2]

i read somewhere that the grey screen comes because its firmware isn't high enough..

I know thats true for G3 iMacs... I'm not sure about the G4s though. Do you have leopard disk though? While it's not officially supported, those machines can run 10.5 quite well. You could use that to tide you over until you can find a copy of tiger/panther.

 

[bluestar14]

about the leopard disk, isn't the requirements too high for my 700mhz G4?

 

[jodelli]

It might run on that machine since it's not far off spec.http://lowendmac.com/imacs/15in-imac-g4-700-800-mhz.html

 

[bluestar14]

....

well, i tried it before, it didn't work, Apple is a little strict with leopard, i guess
P.S. that isn't the main problem now, one day, i turned it on, and the power led of display turned on, but the display showed nothing, and no Apple noise either...is the Kernel the thing holding all the info of target disk, and network booting, etc.? I looked inside, nothing looks wrong...(there isn't any warranty to void)