Won't boot cd

[Super20]

I have a G4 AGP Graphics model running 500mhz and 419mb of ram. 20 gig of hard drive. Cd rom drive. Running OS X 10.4.7. I got this from my brother and he installed a bunch of developer and server stuff on it that I don't want. I want to format the drive and do a clean install. So I have the 10.4 install cds. Put the first cd in, loads up great. Click on the install icon. It tells me to restart. I click it and the computer restarts. Only, it just loads back into the original OS that's already on it ( stated above). Try holding down and c and nothing happens. Try holding down the alt to see if it's bootable and that doesn't work. I try to change the startup, and I click on the install cd to startup from there but it the computer makes that thumpy error noise and nothing happens. How can I do a clean install and start over with this thing?

 

[Makosuke]

The only things I can think of off the top of my head, based on what you describe are:

1) It's not the original optical drive, and whatever it is isn't bootable. Don't know how you'd check this, but you can ask if it was upgraded.

2) There's a firmware update that hasn't been installed. You can check Apple's site, but if 10.4 is already on it, this doesn't sound like the case.

3) There's something wrong with your install CD. Can you test and see if it's bootable in another machine, or if your G4 will boot from a different bootable CD (say, the hardware test disc that originally came with it, if you have it)?