Restoring an iMac G4

[bballs91]

Hey my friend bought a new C2D iMac cause he thought his G4 was broken. So I took it off his hands and am trying to get it back to a working state. I'd like to try to restore OS X but if I can't then i'm just gonna install Ubuntu .

Currently when it boots it just goes to a gray screen with a small folder in the middle with a blinking question mark and Mac OS 9 logo.

Next to my 20" monitor it looks like the 17" version and as far as I can remember it has a 1.25ghz CPU.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Sounds like a faulty hard drive. Have you tried booting from an OS X install disk? Hold down the 'alt' button during power up and you should get a boot select screen.

 

[bballs91]

yea i thought of that too but i don't have the cd and neither does my friend.

 

[teleromeo]

Looks like there is no system or it is damaged.
If you have another mac try target mode.

Shut down both systems and connect them with a firewire cable. Start your mac holding the T-key and when you have the firewire symbol on the screen try to start the iMac with the system on your machine.

If it works you can clone the system of the working mac.

 

[bballs91]

Nah, only got one mac.

Also does anyone know how to burn a cd in windows that I will be able to boot from on the imac, i can't get the ubuntu image to burn correctly in nero.

 

[compudude86]

what does it do when it is booted? any spool up noise or telltale clicking? did he ever mess with the hard drive or swap it out? check that the jumper of the drive is on master, i drove myself nuts for days with this, i swapped a hard drive out of a pc i was upgrading and found out later that mac doesnt support cable select.....

 

[teleromeo]

Your friend got a new iMac, try the trick I told you at his place.

 

[bballs91]

alright well i couldn't get os x back and my ubuntu 7.04 PPC dvd kept freezing on me, so i decided to go with xubuntu 7.04. Its all up and running now..except for flash and java