Startup grey screen w/ two buttons

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trying to get an older machine that i got from a friend to work. apparently it has no os on the hd, so i booted up with panther in the cd drive and hold the option key. after which....

a grey screen appears with two buttons on it. an arrow pointing to the right, and an arrow making a circular shape. clicking on either button does nothing.

anyone have any ideas?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Back to my old 2.2GHz C2D MB after selling my MBP and wondering what my next Mac will be :)
You can't just plonk any Apple disc in any Mac.... Is the Panther disc the disc that came with that machine?
 
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no...i have no idea what the machine's original os was either. it's a pretty old powermac g4, couldn't figure out exactly which one it was, but all it's internals are pre-millenium...so that old.

any ideas which os would be the right one? and also what the two buttons are supposed to be?
 
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Back to my old 2.2GHz C2D MB after selling my MBP and wondering what my next Mac will be :)
Without a screen shot... is just too hard to know.
Also, without machine specs, is once a again, hard to tell you what os you need to get it working! Either way, it has to be a retail version which is not machine specific, unless it is the original disc that came with that machine.
 
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alright 6string. so i'm leaning towards the powermac g4 AGP graphics...however...the family number (M5183) didn't show up on the list in the link....so i googled that. and i have found out that the family number belongs to the powermac g3 series...pretty strange, coz it says power macintosh g4 on the back of the machine.

it's got a
xpc7400 rx400ph processor
512mb pc100 RAM
rage 128 pro graphics

i'ma go check see the g3 list so i can figure out wassup with this machine.
 
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aaaaaaa....so i been cruising around tryna figure this **** out... i'm hella confused. i been gettin pointed around all over hte place. the specs tellin me it's a PM G4 AGP but family number M5183 is throwing me off...i guess i'ma be spendin some more time surfin looking for answers.
yeah but thanks for your patience dude...pushed me along a bit...i think this baby might need an age old os on it.
 
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Back to my old 2.2GHz C2D MB after selling my MBP and wondering what my next Mac will be :)
I'm thinking that what you are describing on the grey screen is a refresh button and I think a select boot volume arrow...
If your HD hasn't failed, you will need original install discs or Panther retail cds (4x)
M5183 covers G3's and early G4's
 

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