imac help needed please, completely new to mac world

[JaSonic]

Hi,

Am totally new to using macs and to be honest havent got a clue about them in the slightest, so please go easy on me.

got a blue/white slot loading imac, empty hard drive that has been totally wiped and mac os 8.5

if i put the disc in and start the system whilst holding 'C', all i get is an icon in the middle of the screen which keeps flashing a question mark, same result that happens if i press nothing on the keyboard at all.

i need to load the os onto the system to make it usable but i havent a clue what im doing wrong.

The rom drive is accepting the disc and is spinning upto speed and also has been replaced twice for elimating purposes (got a stack of about 9 imacs at my workplace so plenty of spares )

any help as to what i am doing wrong or suggestions on getting the os to install would be greatfully appreciated.

Thankyou very much

 

[deus_ex_machina]

The question mark icon sounds like there's no bootable hard disk, make sure the hard drive is firmly connected. If that doesn't work, possibly an external hard drive to boot from?

 

[JaSonic]

when we get computers in at where i work, they hard drives have to be wiped and we use specialist software to do the job military stye (data cannot be retireved no matter what), when that is done we stick a standard fat32 partition back on the drive.

the current drive in the imac got removed, put in a regular pc, cleaned, fat32'd, then returned back to the imac. so is a working drive (20GB)

If its of ne help, the imacs model no. is M5521

ne more suggestions greatfully appreciated

cheers

 

[rman]

I am leaning toward a bad install CD. Make sure you are using a bootable install CD and clean the disk if needed.

 

[deus_ex_machina]

ok - try what Devilboy suggests in this thread.
Here's more reference:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9231&highlight=install+8.5
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5819&highlight=install+8.5
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5491&highlight=install+8.5

 

[JaSonic]

cheers for that, i shall have a bash and see what i can do

 

[JaSonic]

ok guys, have tried multiple options and button presses, but i cannot seem to install an os onto the system.

i've now got 3 working macs, 4 boot cd's, and on none of them can i do any thing with.

I'm totally stumped.

On the 3rd mac i got working, i deleted all partitions to see if that was the answer so the hd is as new, but still no results. (Partitions cleared by fdisk in a pc)

please help someone, im really pulling my hair out here.

 

[JaSonic]

ok, having done some more looking around, have found something that has made it work:

Restart the Mac while holding down the Apple Key to the
left of the spacebar and also the Alt (option) key and also
hold down "p"& "r" keep them held down untill you hear
the startup tone 3 times at least and then release if it still
wont boot from the cd, then try restarting the mac while
holding down the ALT (option) key this will give you a
boot screen and will eventually show you the drives it can
boot from, it should list the Mac HD and the CD click on
the CD and then Click the forward arrow

i havent a clue what the first part was ment to do (apple key+alt+p+r), but its now loading from the cd

being as i completely new to macs, what suggestions would you guys recommend, any info for a newby greatfully appreciated

 

[JaSonic]

Ok guys, now trying to get a second mac up and running, but back to square one with the icon in the middle.

Have even tried taking out the working drive from mac a and put it into mac b and still the system will not load up, just get the question mark icon in the middle.

Does this mean i got a faulty system or something, hd back into mac a works fine. I can hear the cd rom spinning up just fine.

 

[JaSonic]

Dont know if this means anything, but i now got 3 macs working out of 15 we got at work, but all 3 are a light blue colour.

the rest apart from 2 are a dark blue mac and it dont matter which one i put good working drives in, all i get is the question mark.

please someone, please tell me what i am doing wrong.

 

[Jonnyfive]

It has to do with hard drive for sure,
1)make sure that they are formated and have an OS on them to boot off. If you have other macs that are working use a great program called Super Duper! Hook the hard drive that is in the imac up to the mac that is working, copy the working macs hard drive to the imac hard drive with Super Duper! and it will make an exact bootable copy of the Hard drive, slap that hard drive back in the imac, check the cables and power cable and you should be good to go. (although you will need to make sure that you change the jumper settings on the imac hard drive to slave when doing this and remember to switch it back to master when you put it back in the Imac)
2)Make sure that the harddrive is connected to the ide cable and power cable, also 3)check jumper settings and make sure that the Hard drive is set to master.


Hope that helps, if you need any help of have any questions on how to do this let me know.

 

[Jonnyfive]

p.s. Sell me one that works dirt cheap.

 

[JaSonic]

p.s. Sell me one that works dirt cheap.

Plenty for sale m8y, but will have probs getting to you as i in UK

 

[JaSonic]

trying to install this 'super duper' but its downloaded as a .dmg file, and when i open it, just comes up with an 'open with' screen.

how do i run .dmg files



(sorry been a while to respond, the mac i had got sold and i just got my hands on another)

 

[Aptmunich]

They should just work?

If they don't you should be able to mount them with the Disk utility.
(applications-> utilities)

 

[JaSonic]

i can't see nothing in that folder for mounting images.

been having a read round and not sure if i reading correct...

is it because i on os 9.2.2 ????

 

[Aptmunich]

Well that is a minor detail I must have overlooked.

Superduper! requires OS X 10.3.9 or later.

 

[JaSonic]

so be honest....
i've had a lot of software probs that dont seem compatible with OS9.2.2, is this mac really worth keeping?

ie never seems to display correctly (contents all seem to be down one side of the screen on most web pages and it seems that ie5 is no longer), no programs seem compatible no more.

Its a G4 that i got, 400Mhz, what OS can it handle, its only sommin i can learn on if you know what i mean.

 

[dtravis7]

What exact Mac is this? I thought you said in your first post a B&W Slot Load iMac. Those are a G3. Even so, it can handle OSX 10.3 Panther. Is it a G4 Mac or an iMac Slot load?

 

[JaSonic]

i did have a imac slot load, but that got sold on, now got me hands on a G4 tower unit