iMac G3/400 - Broken slot-load drive, no OS, reinstall 9.2 without CD?

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Hello,
I have 2 slot load iMac G3/400s, both of which have broken CD-ROM drives (takes in discs when the wheels don't slip, but doesn't read them, bad laser?) and blank hard drives. I want to get 9.2 back on them (don't think it would be efficient to run OSX on such old hardware), but neither have working optical drives. I'm aware of Target Disk Mode & installing from another mac, but my only other mac can not boot into OS9. Is there any way to:
1) Install OS9 back onto these systems?
2) Repair these slot-load drives to read discs again?

Thanks.
 
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How about using an external CD/DVD reader? It will have to be Firewire I believe for it to be seen at startup. The internal Cd/DVD can be changed as I did it to my Grape iMac. That was a fun sound - the sound of a dollar coin (we found out later) swirling around wrecking the DVDs we inserted.
 
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I have an external USB cd/dvd writer (I dont have any FireWire drives)that will boot the 10.4 install media, but not the 10.1 install media. I'll try it with my 9.2 CD and see if it works.

As far as I know, the slot load iMacs can't swap out their drives except for other compatible slot-load drives.

EDIT: 9.2 CD had no luck, just comes up with a dark gray screen and mouse pointer, then hangs, with no disc drive activity.
I also did verbose on the 10.1 install cd, and it hangs with a still waiting on root device error.
 
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You got the only suggestion ~ Firewire or replace the optical drives alas.
 

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