iMac G3 - Can I hook up my external DVDR to the mac's USB port?

Was walking down town the other day and see this one guy moving out from some apartments. As I walk by, I see him carry some stuff to a dumpster. Amongst this was a blueberry iMac G3 (slot loading) machine.

I of course being curious walked on over and asked him if he was tossing the iMac out. He sure was. He said it worked fine, but his daughter got a new(er) iBook and he didn't need all this junk following him.

Well, I took it off his hands, got home after lugging it a kilometer (Hey, it's winter and my bike is in winter storage). Plugged it in (didn't get any mouse or keyboard but hey), and it started right up.

Take a look:



It's sitting in my "junk room" where I keep all my "crap". Hehe.

Now, onto my question. I have a 10.4 DVD laying around here and the 10.3 that's installed is full of junk. This iMac AFAIK doesn't have a DVD station. Can I hook up my external DVDR to the mac's USB port? Or do I have to do everything via target disk through my old Powerbook?

Appreciate the help, plan on making this thing a SomaFM internet radio station.

**Edit**
Always wanted one of these old iMacs, especially after using one in Hong Kong's Int'l Air Port. It's so 90's!

First u can look up the spec here - Apple iMac Specs (All iMac Technical Specs) @ EveryMac.com and if u want 10.4 u need one of these labels;


Click for full size

I can't really tell the difference between those old iMacs. This has at least a 400mhz PPC G3 and 256mb ram.

And what did you mean by "if u want 10.4 u need one of these labels"?

KSon09 said:

And what did you mean by "if u want 10.4 u need one of these labels"?

Click to expand...

He means a grey Tiger disk will be specific tothe machine it came with.

The picture shown is of the retails disk that will install on any PPC mac

Nice find - they are classic little machines

KSon09 said:

I can't really tell the difference between those old iMacs. This has at least a 400mhz PPC G3 and 256mb ram.

And what did you mean by "if u want 10.4 u need one of these labels"?

Click to expand...

If the G3 iMac is a 400mhz...there's a pretty darn good chance it has a DVD drive:

Apple iMac G3/400 DV (Slot Loading - Fruit) Specs (Slot Loading DV/SE - M7493LL/A*) @ EveryMac.com

As far as what "Collin Bl" was suggesting about the "black disk with a big X" on it...I'm going to guess that they he was trying to warn you that if the 10.4 disk you have is gray-colored...it most likely won't work in the G3 iMac you have...many people make this mistake (these gray disks are model specific).

The black disk with the big X will install 10.4 properly.

Hope this helps,

- Nick

Ok, a bit slow to the draw you see.

I just popped in a DVD, no dice. It tried to read it and then sent it back out.

I read the link you posted, this iMac has no video output and only one firewire port. Has everything else though.

So, does anyone know if I can just plug in a USB DVDR and use that? Or do I have to do an install through the powerbook?

**Edit**
I also have the retail version of 10.4, I may have the one that came with the powerbook too. Not sure.

A USB external will be too slow to boot from as the iMac is USB1. All PowerPC require a firewire connection for an external drive, hard or optical, to be bootable. Sorry.

The iMac could be a slot loading 350MHz also. They made those before the 400MHz variety.

It should run tiger, though Panther is such a sweet OS... you should keep panther or jaguar on it, whatever it's running. You will have one of the few machines running it and will be able to help out people with panther questions. =-O

DarkestRitual said:

The iMac could be a slot loading 350MHz also. They made those before the 400MHz variety.

Click to expand...

No, it's a 400mhz G3. ;D

I'm going to give my friend a call. He's a big Machead, has a ton of old Newtons, those Batman-esque laptops from Apple (eMates?) +++. Maybe he has 10.4 on CD-roms? AFAIK, you could request these from Apple right? Maybe he'd trade.

So thanks for all the input guys, appreciate it!

**Edit**
Never mind the last part (which I edited out), figured it out.

Apple discontinued Tiger on CDs years ago, in fast they have also discontinued sale of Leopard and Tiger!. They were available on a swap basis for folk with eMacs and no DVD drive. Very, very hard to find now.

Its not the best way to do it but you can upgrade from the USB drive. This is NOT booting from DVDR. Start the machine "Imac" crank up the USB drive open the OS X installer window click install. The installer will close down the system and install the upgrade version. You can not reformat the drive from this way. Did this years ago from SCSI externals, just dont be in any hurry.