Help with my iMac g3 installing OS 9!

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Can anybody please help me with my iMac g3? I had the folder with the question mark problem occur so I bought mac os 9.1 full install CD and am trying to install it, and nothing happens when I press 'c' or 'cmd-option-shift-delete', etc.

What should I do next?

Thank you for any and all your help!
 
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Help with my iMac g3?

Can anybody please help me with my iMac g3? I had the folder with the question mark problem occur so I bought mac os 9.1 full install CD and am trying to install it, and nothing happens when I press 'c' or 'cmd-option-shift-delete', etc.

What should I do next?

Thank you for any and all your help!
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
With the iMac running, pop the CD in, then hit restart an d immediately after the chime, then hold down 'C'.
 
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Response to HarryB

With the iMac running, pop the CD in, then hit restart an d immediately after the chime, then hold down 'C'.

Hi Harry, thanks for the suggestion but I cannot hit a restart button because my iMac has virtually no software on it to click on 'restart'. Do you mean press the on/off button? I have done this too, and no success. Do you or any of you users have any suggestions? Thanks!
 
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OK, I did what harry said with the restart button and nothing happened.

Does anybody see this whole process as a lost cause?
I'm starting to believe that I'm wasting hours of time and lots of $ on fixing a machine that could have a fundamental problem of a broken hard drive meanwhile I am troubleshooting around the real problem.
Is there any way to find out if the hard drive is broken??
 
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If you are pressing the on.off button with the disc in the optical drive, hold down 'C' immediately after the chime and it should open up the Installer page where you can go into Utilities and erase and format the drive. If this is not working sounds like the optical drive has failed and it is not worth spending any money on a G3 as really they are like the dinosaur age.

Also it is a tough job replacing the optical and hard drives.
 
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If you are pressing the on.off button with the disc in the optical drive, hold down 'C' immediately after the chime and it should open up the Installer page where you can go into Utilities and erase and format the drive. If this is not working sounds like the optical drive has failed and it is not worth spending any money on a G3 as really they are like the dinosaur age.

Also it is a tough job replacing the optical and hard drives.

That's too bad...I have never owned a Mac before and this computer brought back fond memories of using friends' iMacs. Too bad. When I Press C after rebooting, nothing happens, just the question mark/mac face. when I press option upon startup, a blue screen with a circular arrow on the left and an arrow pointing right ---> appear. The arrow pointing right --> does nothing and the circular arrow causes the computer to seem as if it were starting to spin the CD around as if it were about to load something, but nothing changes on the monitor and the sound eventually stops with the screen still blue with the two arrows. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
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What color is this OS 9 Disc. It should be white with an orange 9 on it. Or its an iMac install disc its solid orange with white.
 

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