G4 booting problem

I am selling my old G4 imac and wanted to wipe it completely, re-install the OS X (10.4) and then get rid of it.

I've taken everything i want to keep off it and put it on an external hard drive.

When i put the OS X disk in the drive, shut down, restart holding "C", a screen comes up with loads of jargon on it, and then in the middle of the screen there is a box which says to restart the computer.

In order for the computer to boot normally, you have to hold "D" whilst booting. This should bring up the hardware test, but it doesnt, it just boots normally.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Ian

Is it a real OS X disk or copy?

Try different RAM. OS X discs can be finicky with RAM.

I do not know about booting the hardware test but try this:

Give the restore DVD a good clean

Insert the DVD in the mac and when mounted select it as the startup disk in system preferences and see if it boots successfully off the DVD

thanks for your responses, tried both but still no joy. I took out the extra ram that had been put in but it still didn't work. Nightmare.

It sounds like it's gibing you a Kernel Panic.
You need to run FSCK check and let it repair any problems. Once it's done so you should be ok to do a clean install.
Search "how to fix kernel panic" here and you'll find my detailed explanation of how to do it.

What type of OS X disc are you using? Not a silver/grey disc as these are model specific and will generally only work with model machine they were issued with.

You do need the Tiger full retail install DVD which is black.