G4 wont boot after osx 10.4 install

[rarb]

So I installed osx 10.4 server on a Power Mac G4 (white/blue)

Went throught the setup screens and did a complete reformat / install. The boot disk is set to the HDD. after the install is complete it just boots to the loader screen. (Where the mac face shows, followed by a question mark) and just cycles over and over.

I can put the DVD in at this point and restart the install.. I did go in and check the disk permissions and disk status and both passed..

I've also checked the open firmware. printenv and it shows the HD and path.

Do I have the wrong firmware? Did I miss a step? What should I try next? I can't find anything else to try from the MAC support page. And I looked throught the FAQ's here and can't find the next step to troubleshoot.

[MacDoug]

I'm a bit confused about the mac model you're using - is it a Blue & White G3, or a G4? It shouldn't matter, because I looked it up and the G3 B&W is supported hardware, but...that's a pretty old box if true. Have you tried holding down the "option" key at boot to choose a startup disk, but if so, try that and see if you can select the HDD manually.

I originally suspected firmware or other patches, and found an Apple KB doc about it:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31002

BUT, if you read closely it doesn't seem that any of the patches for a G3 B&W running OS X server are really necessary. But I included it here in case you find something for your particular config.

Is this the original hard disk? If not, if it's ever been replaced or jiggered with, I would also check to see that the HDD installation is properly set for master/slave mode. I had issues installing OS X Public beta/10.0 on my beige G3 because of this.