Installing OS X from scratch on G5 - problems

Hi. I'm pretty new to Mac's, so please help!!!

I recently purchased an iMac G5. It has 512Mb RAM (extended from 256), 80Kg HDD, 17" screen.

I tried putting OS X 10.5 on, but it keeps coming up 'this software cannot be installed on this machine', or something along those lines. Unfortunately, the HD is formatted now (well, erased using Disc Utility - I'm guessing this is the same thing).

I know it was working fine before, and it's fine when checked out with the disk utility stuff.

I'm hoping it's just that the system isn't powerful enough for this version of Mac OS, although on the spec-sheet it looked like it would work.

If anyone has any tips for me, they'd be greatly appreciated

G'day and welcome to the forums.

What type of discs are you using? Not I trust the silver grey type install discs from another machine as these are very much limited to the machine they came with. All G5's can run Leopard if you are using a black coloured full retail install DL DVD. And you mean an 80GB for gigabyte hard drive.

To format the drive, pop in the DVD, reboot and hold down 'C' immediately after the chimes, go to Disk Utility in the Menu Bar and format the drive Mac OS Extended (Journalled) and back to the Installer and install.

This is the thing: I'm using the grey MacBook ones. I was wondering if that could be the problem.

Yes, I meant 80Gb!!! .

I've purchased a set of OS 10.3 Panther discs (CD's). Will these work? They are the retail boxed version.

minxiepinx said:

This is the thing: I'm using the grey MacBook ones. I was wondering if that could be the problem.

Click to expand...

Stop wondering. That IS the problem.

You need the gray discs for that EXACT model of iMac G5 *or* you need the retail (black) Leopard discs. Nothing else will do.

I've purchased a set of OS 10.3 Panther discs (CD's). Will these work? They are the retail boxed version.

Click to expand...

[facepalms]

Um, possibly. If your iMac originally shipped with that version of Panther, then yes, they'll work. Otherwise no.

I sincerely hope you haven't put a lot of money into this so far ...