Mac mini G4 OS X install

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Sorry, should say Mac mini G4 OS X install

I recently acquired a mac mini g4 from a friend of mine. It worked before I took it home, then when I turned it on at home the computer did not boot up. So here's what I have done so far:

1) Tried to boot from my recovery disk that came with my macbook.
Result: nothing happened (spinning loading wheel freeze at startup)

2) Tried to boot from snow leopard disc.
Result: same as above.
2b) Then, I did a quick erase of the HD, created an iso file of snow leopard and put it on the clean drive. I then booted from the HD and I got to the language selection of mac os install.
Result: "mac os x cannot be installed on this computer" error

3) Now I just tried to install 10.4 Tiger from a retail disc.
Result: Loading screen went black and wont open the mac os install guide.


I am also limited to what I can do under the disk utility program. I cant erase the HD anymore, it is verified as working though. This is frustrating because it seems like the computer does not want take any of the OS I throw at it.

Any suggestions?
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

1. The mini will never boot from a MB disc. The original install discs are extremely model specific.

2. No G4 can ever install from a Snow Leopard disc as they are Intel only.

3. If it is a black OS X.4 Tiger disc Snow Leopard has corrupted something. If it is a silver grey Tiger disc see answer 1.

Check up on all these things before going in.
 

pigoo3

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I have the black disc.

Now how do I fix the problem of snow leopard corrupting my HD?
 
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Can you boot from the Tiger disc? Pop it in, reboot and hold down 'C' after the chime until the gear wheel starts up and release. If any joy should open to installer, go to Utilities > Disk Utility and format Mac OS Extended (Journalled) which will wipe the drive, back to the installer and proceed.
 
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I think the HD or some other hardware might be shot because when I held the c key upon boot up nothing happened, same when I held the option key. This is just very frustrating.
 
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What was frustrating to the computer was trying to boot from impossible software alas.
 
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One more question....

How do you completely delete everything (including partitions) on your hard drive using the terminal commands?

The disk utility will not erase the hard drive. The button is greyed out.
 

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