Problems with Mac desktop

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and Macs as well.

I have a Mac tower that was given to me. The tower had OX9 and the person who gave it to tried to upgrade to OSX and something went wrong.

So, I thought to fix it I would just reinstall OSX from scratch. I placed the DVD in the drive and turned it on, but it doesn't boot off the DVD. Even when pressing C it just doesn't do it. All I get is a gray screen with the Apple logo. When it boots into the OS, the screen looks really bad and the mouse cursor looks rectangular and sometimes it doesn't work.

The DVD drive works because once booted into the OS I can access it and run the OSX install. It tells me to reboot, but after the reboot it doesn't boot from the DVD and it just crashes. I get a message stating that I need to reboot the computer.

Can anyone give me any advice/pointers?


Thanks.

Wil

I think it would be a good idea to hold the alt option key while booting up.
It should show an image of a CD besides an icon of your Mac HD.

Select the CD.

Regards.

Moving from OS 9 to OS X is a little tricky.

First you have to be at 9.2.2 (last upgrade for OS 9). If needed get it here -

Mac OS 9.2.2: Document and Software

Then you need to update the firmware. Read about it here.

Mac OS X: Available firmware updates

THEN you can install OS X. The firmware is critical for success.

What version of OS X are you trying to install? You need a processor faster than 867 in a G4 to load Leopard (10.5) but Tiger (10.4) will run very nicely. Remember to max the RAM out.

I believe that somehow the upgrade was successful when he tried it. What I just wanted to do was wipe everything and install OSX clean, but that's where I have come up with the issue. I believe the OS version is Leopard.

The system boots fine, but if booting from the DVD, most times it won't boot from it and it will crash as well. Once in the OS, the video looks off, as if the video drivers are not installed.

I've been reading around and found others that have the same issue. They stated the below:

I think I found a cure but it is a long shot, found it here on Apple's support:
[discussions.apple.com]

It is due to the fact that we upgraded to Nvidia 8800GT and we need at least a 10.5.2 DVD in order to boot properly as earlier versions i.e. 10.5 or 10.5.1 don't have the proper drivers for Nvidia 8800, my Leopard is v. 10.5.1 and Apple Install Disks(original 2) are Tiger 10.4.7, ouch.
So unless we get ourhands on a Leopard 10.5.2, we are out of luck.
Apple should have known better before selling us this card without the warning.

Click to expand...

Can you tell us what machine we are trying to fix? Wiping everything may mean re installing OS 9 on some machines. If you have a G4 or newer you should be good to go. The OS X disks are they Black (retail versions)?

I'm trying to wipe the machine that had OS9, but got upgraded to OSX, but something went wrong with it. It's the same machine and I'm just trying to wipe it clean with a new install of OSX.

The disk was provided to me by a friend, not an OEM one, but a copy.

Ok, my friend just informed me that the OSX DVD that I have is 10.5.4, so the solution/problem that I thought I had it's not.

Any other suggestions?

You need to provide the specifications of the computer you have. This can go a long way towards solving your problem.

Ok, I'll post the info tonight.

Sorry for the late reply. Below is the info that is on the back of the system.

Power Mac G4
400 MHz
1MB Cache
128 MB SDRAM
20GB HD
DVD-Rom
SCSI card

The system boots into OX 10.3, but the video just looks bad. I was able to change the resolution and hertz to get a better view. If I chang the colors to 256, I can actually see the mouse cursor. Looking at the ATI control panel, it states that its an unknown card.

I took the graphics card out and it's an ATI Rage 128 PRO AGP card. Where can I find the most current drivers for this card? I looked all over and cannot find anything.

It's amazing what you can do with 5 minutes on google.

Read here. Too bad the url is broken. It looks like the driver is on the 9.0 disk. >_>"

Did more digging and found this. Not sure but I think the 2nd one is the one you want.

Thanks. I'll give that a try, otherwise I'm thinking of going back to OS 9

That link doesn't work anymore

Can anyone else help? I have the OSX and 9 Cds but nothing. I cannot find the driver anywhere.