So I just purchased two older imacs.

So that is why it let me restore one of them but not the other??

I'll probably try H.H. Greg first then go to circuit city or walmart.

Hey Louishen! Great minds think alike!!

Ok so I hope this is the last thing I have to ask. I connect both macs with firewire. Then I do what put the disc into the imac that will boot it and restart both computers but hold c on the one I wish to install to?? Can you give me a quick step by step guide since I'm kinda a mac newbie?

Use a Macintosh with DVD drive in FireWire target disk mode for the installation.

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install DVD into the computer with the DVD drive.
2. Shut down both computers.
3. Restart the computer with a DVD drive in target disk mode.
4. Connect the computer with the DVD drive to the computer using a FireWire cable.
5. Turn on the computer without the DVD drive.
6. When that computer starts up, the second computer's hard drive will appear on the first computer's desktop and the Mac OS X Install Disc will also show up on the desktop. Now you can install Mac OS X on the computer without the DVD drive.

Hope this helps!

I don't know if this will work. I can get the dvd to open on the desktop of the computer with the freaky disc drive. However when I try to install from within mac os x it won't work.

I think it has more to do with the disc no reading quickly enough for the startup screen.

It may just be the optical drive itself. The way I described, it will read from the iMac that seems to be working. Think of it as a bypass...
Use the good Mac with the good optical drive to install on the bad Mac with the bad optical drive. As long as the other Mac's optical drive is good, it should work.

Does the install disk work on the good Mac?

Are the disks you have the original ones that came with your machine? Installation disks supplied by Apple are specific for the machine. In other words, I can't use a Leopard set from a MacBook Pro to install Leopard on my MacBook. I have to use the set that came with my MacBook. Or, I can buy a generic Leopard retail set from Apple.

Regards.

Give this a try as well to check the hardware.
The Apple Hardware Test

If you need the test...
Apple Hardware Test Images

Yes as louishen advised grey discs are model specific and for that particular model ONLY.

See if you can buy cheaply a full retail install DVD/CD on whatever system you wish, such as Tiger OS X.4, Panther OS X.3 etc.

Is this a grey Tiger disc? If so it is model specific only and you probably need the black full retail install DVD. To boot from an external drive must be firewire for PPC machines.

Purchase a full retail install DVD version.

So I just purchased to older imacs.

And well at first everything was great. I had one that was quick to update to os x tiger. The other one I originally had a disc read error. It was reading discs but poorly I though. The real problem was a scratched disc for tiger. I reburnt it and it worked fine. However, the computer I had the problem with will now only read dvds. I did something crazy and can't use the restore discs anymore. I had to erase the whole hd and reboot os x 10.1.4 well now I want to put tiger on it. How can I do this is firewire the only way? Could I have done something to the disc drive in the imac I was getting frustrated around I accidently interrupted a system restore once and now it seems to be running incredibly slow. Sorry I dunno if that is good information or enough information about my problem. If yo need more just ask me. Man I wish it would run other discs but Oh well. I think it still recoginzes blank discs as well.

Is target disk mode achieved when you hold c down and restart??

You need to supply more information. What model Mac(s) are you trying to upgrade? Are you trying to upgrade both to Tiger? And do you have an original or generic Tiger installation set? (Remember, one license per machine allowed unless you have a 5 pack license)

Regards.

Judging from his earlier threads, I'd say the model's are iMac G4's.

As for your problem, one of the disc drives could be bad, but I don't think you could have done anything to damage it unless you did something physically to it.

The only solution I can offer: if you have an external firewire HDD, you could clone the working hard drive to that and then clone that to the other. Though somehow I think that may be illegal, so it's best to see if you can get the disc drive to work first.

Yeah the disc drive isn't working and I have a family pack for tiger so I just need to use a disc drive from the working one on the other computer I need to update.

Ah, I forgot about good ol' Target Disk Mode.

See, Apple? THIS is why we need FW!

DJfThWdz said:

Is target disk mode achieved when you hold c down and restart??

Click to expand...

No. Hold the "t" down. Check my first post. I put a link for target disk mode. It will walk you thru it. Good luck and keep us posted!