07-25-2006, 08:03 AM

Hey Guys, I am a major Mac Newb, but have been around PCs forever. I got an old trayloading iMac G3. Strawberry colored.The guy I got it from restored it to OS 9.2. Well I just bought a 120 gig hardrive for it. I installed it, and am running the restore disk to install the OS.
It ran and supposedly installed OS 8.5 but it won't boot up without a cd in there, I get a flashing ? and smiley face logo. SO I tried again. Now I get a "Not enough disk space on untitled hardrive to install" There is 120 gigs.
What can I do? Thanks!

07-25-2006, 08:29 AM

This here is your Machine. Tray Loading in colors. Read this URL very carefully. The REal old Tray Loading Macs have to have the first 8GB of an HDD as the boot partition. It tells you how to do it about 2/3ds down the page. If I can help anymore let me know.

http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/imac-c.shtml

It's either the Rev C or Rev D iMac. After that they were slot loading.

07-25-2006, 08:32 AM

What is? There is no link.

07-25-2006, 08:35 AM

whenever I do anything it says "The startup disk is locked.." But the startup is my hDD I changed it to be so.

07-25-2006, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by FlMacGuy

What is? There is no link.

Opps, check that message again. Link did not paste.

07-25-2006, 08:40 AM

I could be wrong, but when it says "8gigs for the OS" it meant on OSX... I'm trying to restore OS 8.5

07-25-2006, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by FlMacGuy

I could be wrong, but when it says "8gigs for the OS" it meant on OSX... I'm trying to restore OS 8.5

All the Tray Loading Macs need the boot partition in the first 8GB. I own the machine. I have worked with Macs for years.

07-25-2006, 08:56 AM

Ok well I made the first partition 8gigs. and I made it MACOS Standard, the 2nd partition was the remaining space and made it MACOS Extended. I then told the restore disk to restore to the 8gb partition. And I'm still getting the Flashing Happy face / ? . This bites . I can't figure it out.

07-25-2006, 08:57 AM

the drive is a 7200RPM Seagate Barricuda 120gb... could it be the new drive?

07-25-2006, 08:59 AM

They say it should be 7.45 GB due to the different ways size is reported. Hope that does it. 120GB should be fine but nothing larger. Older Macs up to the later Quicksilver G4's can not take anything over 120GB.

07-25-2006, 09:03 AM

Blah I'm a wiz at Linux, that's all I really use except for the laptop i'm currently on. I haven't felt this helpless in 10 years When I started with Linux lol

07-25-2006, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by FlMacGuy

Blah I'm a wiz at Linux, that's all I really use except for the laptop i'm currently on. I haven't felt this helpless in 10 years When I started with Linux lol

I hear you. Those Tray iMacs are nice little machines but quite old. I have a Grape colored 333Mhz one. I had to do the same thing with the partition with a larger HDD. Good Luck. I will be here for a while longer.

07-25-2006, 09:14 AM

Still won't work it's missing everything... it won't boot up.. and if I run like Internet setup wizard it can't find "SOM" I can't run anything due to missing files.

07-25-2006, 09:15 AM

I'm upgrading so I can install OSX on it.. right now it has like 96 mb of RAM and I just ordered 512. It had a 6gb Hdd now I put in a 120gb.. and I can't even load 8.5

07-25-2006, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by FlMacGuy

I'm upgrading so I can install OSX on it.. right now it has like 96 mb of RAM and I just ordered 512. It had a 6gb Hdd now I put in a 120gb.. and I can't even load 8.5

Screw it.. I'll just install Linux