OSX Installation help PLEASE :)

Hello all,

Please bare with me, I am a very experienced with PC's but not Apple products.

So, my girlfriend has a iMac G5 20"/512MB/250GB/SD/AP/BT (purchased around 2005). A few weeks ago it failed to start up OSX. It would reach the blue screen where it displays the loading bar but the bar would stop moving (at what seems to be ~99%) and the computer would lock up (I even let it sit for an hour once).

In response to the above mentioned problem this is what I have done:
1.) reset the NVRAM
2.) ran disk utility in the console to check for errors; none were found. still would hang at start up.
3.) removed the hard drive and hooked it up to my MacBook Pro 15" (Purchased in 2008) via USB to try to use the GUI Disk Utility, again; no errors. I than ran the repair. still would hang at start up.
4.) Back up all of her photos, music etc to my MBP and formatted the drive using the Disk Utility on my MBP.
5.) Placed the drive back into the iMac and try to install a fresh copy of OSX using the two DVDs that came with my MBP (as my girlfriend does NOT have the installation disk that came with her computer). Unfortunately it seems to have a problem with the installation disk I have. It displays the following error:

"Unable to find driver for this platform..."

Then a bunch of long error codes/ information
followed by:
"panic: We are hanging here"

6.) I even tried installing OSX to the iMac's HDD using my MBP and a USB to SATA adapter. Still no go: it would not let me install to the disk I believe becasue the iMac's HDD is formatted using the 'Apple partition table' instead of the 'GUID partition table'.

So my questions are:
Q1.) Can one use any OSX installation disk (like a Windows CD) or are they specifically taylored for MBP's, iMacs, etc...
Q2.) Is there anyway I can use my MBP installation CD's fo her iMac?
Q3.) Are there diffent OSX cd for PowerPC and intel based Macs?

Please feel free to provide any additional insight.
Thanks in advance.
Dan

You can not use your install set to load OS X on her computer as the installation sets are hardware specific. Hence, the error. That's normal.

You will either need the original install media that came with her G5 or a black retail version of OS X. (expensive) And you can not use Snow Leopard as that is for Intel machines only.

Having said the above, the problem may be related to something else other than the hard drive. (It could still be a bad hard drive even though it checked out OK) That's why you need an original disk or the black retail set (Leopard or Tiger) so you can boot with it and run diagnostics. (Apple Hardware Test)

Regards.

Thank you chscag!

I assume it would be difficult or simply a bad idea to find a torrent of the black box version of Tiger or Leopard? Your thoughts?

I'm not one who is fond to take such actions but we are both full-time students and money does not grow on trees.

G'day and welcome to the forums and as advised original system discs are not interchangeable. Indeed it would be a bad idea and you are inviting malware using pirate software and we do not encourage that on Mac Forums.

Thanks harryb2448!

That's what I was afraid of...