Perhaps one of the resident experts could advise...

Hey guys! It's been a while I know, but I promise to visit more often ;D

I've just bought the missus her 1st Mac (Lucky girl I know). She wanted an iBook and I managed to pick up a G4 from ebay, which has arrived today, which is a start. It's for her birthday and was delivered to my mothers house for reasons of secrecy and she reports that on startup she receives "The apple screen" with a "Spinning thing" (None too technical, my mother) and then the spinning stops and it never starts up.

Now, it was described as having Leopard installed but I was wondering if this sounds like a blank Mac, as in I need to install the OS myself or a dead Mac, as in I need to cry and send an email ALL IN CAPS to the seller.

I won't get to try anything out for another 10 days when I have it but if anyone could waylay my fears until then I'd be grateful.

Thanks in advance!

Tell her to pop in the Leopard discs and start over. You wouldn't want their install anyways if you're giving it as a gift.
Don't tell me you didn't get the discs....

Doesn't sound like we did... what are my options?

Cheers for the swift reply, I remember why I love this place

Try a PRAM reset (Apple, CTRL, P, R i think) and if that doesn't work, the only thing I can think of is to call Apple and ask for the restore discs. That should get you a copy of Tiger for $40 or buy Leopard for $129.

Or, seeing selling a computer on eBay without the OS discs is against their rules, you might be able to get eBay to get the seller to buy you a copy of Leopard or a give you a refund. This method will take much longer than 10 days if the seller does not cooperate.

Cool, I'll give that a try. Thanks again Bry!

Keep us posted

bryphotoguy said:

Or, seeing selling a computer on eBay without the OS discs is against their rules, you might be able to get eBay to get the seller to buy you a copy of Leopard or a give you a refund. This method will take much longer than 10 days if the seller does not cooperate.

Click to expand...

It is ? I didn't know that.
I've never bought a laptop from E Bay with any discs included. This may cause a flood of people going back and asking where their installation CDs are.
Thanks for the info.

Cheers

Hugh

hugtheslug said:

It is ? I didn't know that.
I've never bought a laptop from E Bay with any discs included. This may cause a flood of people going back and asking where their installation CDs are.
Thanks for the info.

Cheers

Hugh

Click to expand...

Yea. A co-worker bought a desktop with XP installed. He went to get it started and the serial was compromised. eBay forced the seller to refund $150 so he could buy a copy.
I can't find the eBay link now. I will look later today for the disclaimer.

Well if thats true about the discs then I wonder where the guy who sold me an iBook clamshell would find those os 9 restore discs!

If you could find the link to the disclaimer Bry that would be a great help. I sent the guy a message and he replied saying he could get me a "Copy" of the Leopard disk...I'm hoping he means the original copy...

Try this from E bay UK - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/unauthorized-copies.html

Hope this helps

Cheers

Hugh

hugtheslug said:

Try this from E bay UK - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/unauthorized-copies.html

Hope this helps

Cheers

Hugh

Click to expand...

Excellent! lets just hope he plays nice, I'd rather he just played by the rules and didn't force me to get grumpy about this. Thanks for your help guys, I'll let you know how it turns out