# Imac G3 questions



## brandN (Sep 19, 2006)

Hi, I just bought an Imac G3 Teal from a local thrift store. I'm wanting to learn more about it and possibly upgrade it to MAC OSX. How do you check system specs like ram, memory, and hard drive? Also how do you erase the hard drive, because the previous owners stuff is still on the imac. The mac only came with the monitor itself and no keyboard or mouse. So i'm having to use a pc keyboard and mouse. No disks or anything else was included.


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## nixgeek (Sep 19, 2006)

If it has an operating system on it (it might have something like Mac OS 8.5, 8.6, or 9.x), go to the Apple menu on the top left and select Apple System Profiler.  Once launched, this will give you all the information you need to know before installing Mac OS X on that iMac.  Also remember that you need to update the firmware on it before installing OS X.  This firmware MUST be done through a pre-OS X operating system, so don't wipe it clean just yet.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

You should be able to use a USB keyboard and mouse, but consider that the USB PC keyboard won't have all the keys that a USB Mac keyboard has.  I would recommend purchasing a Mac keyboard.  The PC mouse is fine as Mac OS X recognizes two-button mouses properly (aka, right click works in OS X).

If you're going to be installing Mac OS X on it, definitely upgrade the memory as high as you can.  Also, depending on your iMac you might have to designate the first 8 GB of the hard drive to OS X, otherwise your installation won't work.  This means that you have to partition your hard drive with the first 8 GB being the first partition for the OS X installation (it will show up as about 7.5 GB when doing it through Disk Utility).  If you need a copy of OS X, check out Other World Computing in order to purchase a copy of OS X.

While you could get the OEM discs, they don't always support all the Macs since they were meant to be shipped with specific Mac models.  The retail version is always your best bet.  Also remember that since you don't have a copy of OS 9, you won't be able to use the Classic environment since OS X doesn't come with a copy of OS 9...it's s seperate purchase.  Of course, if you have no need to run older Classic apps, then this is a non-issue. 

Also, if you're going to get Tiger remember that it only ships in DVD format so if your iMac only has a CD-ROM drive, you won't be able to install it from there.  You could use an external DVD-ROM drive and do it though.  Or, you could ask Apple for a CD version and they should replace your DVD version with the CD version, but I don't know if they're still doing this.

That's all I can think of at the moment.  Hope this helps.


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## brandN (Sep 19, 2006)

MAC OS 9.2
Disk Cache: 3936K
Virtual memory: 200 MB
Built In memory: 192 MB
Video Memory: 8 MB
Speed: 350 MHZ

But I don't see what the hard drive space is. Also, I checked out the website and didn't see OSX Cheetah for sale. I do however need the CD version because it is a slot loading CD drive imac.


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## nixgeek (Sep 19, 2006)

I recommend you purchase Panther for that Mac.  Cheetah is too old and isn't supported by many software developers nowadays.  Panther (10.3.x) is your best bet.

If you need to see the size of the hard drive, highlight the hard drive on the desktop and hit Command-I to Get Info on the hard drive.  This will tell you the capacity of the hard drive.

As for the memory, upgrade it to at least 256 MB, but I recommend 512.  Apple System Profiler should tell you exactly what type of RAM it uses.  Or you could go to RamSeeker and check the RAM for your iMac.


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## sinclair_tm (Sep 19, 2006)

nixgeek said:


> If you need to see the size of the hard drive, highlight the hard drive on the desktop and hit Command-I to Get Info on the hard drive.  This will tell you the capacity of the hard drive.



without an apple keyboard, this is hard to do  .  so click once on the drive icon in the finder, and then goto the menu file>get info.  now that window with the disk size will come up.  right clicking on the icon should also give you the option to get info, but i don't remember, its been too long since i've used a classic booted mac.


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## mstrroissy (Sep 22, 2006)

Aloha, I am new to this forum (t-minus 23 hours) and I too am currently playing with an Imac G3...Mine is a 400MHz though.  I am currently running os X 10.4, with no noticeable issues yet.  Apples site stated the minimum requirement for OS X 10.4 to be 256MB Ram, Firewire port, and 3+gigs of HD space.  As everyone else recommends, go with more than the minimum, I would say 512MB.  Many Imacs 512 was the max, some later G3 models could accommodate up to 1GB.  I got this info from Apple.com support pages just find your serial number either from the sticker on the bottom, or system profiler and it will tell you what your machine came with from the factory and what your max is.

I have seen people say that you can't install OS X on a partition with more than 8GB of space, but I did it last night on a 10GB, and now that I think I have it figured out I will be throwing an 80GB in that puppy, and seeing if I can still get it to go....10GB is just not enough space for 10.4.  Even with a custom install (No extra print/scanner drivers, no extra language support) it still took up 3GB of space...now add in Ilife, or any other apps and youre practically done....

The way I got it to install on a bigger drive was by using my PowerBook and a firewire cable.  I booted the g3 Imac into target diskmode, and connected the two via firewire.  I then started the install from the PowerBook and told it to install on the target drive.  Once all was said and done I disconnected the two puters (while the PowerBook was shut down) and restarted both...and VOILA...it worked like a charm.  Only issue I had with this method was the powerbook upon start up went looking for the operating system on the target disk (no longer connected) when it didn't find it, it automatically booted from the installed OS on its internal drive.  You will just have to re-designate the startup disk in system preferences as the internal volume and all will be well again.  Man I love Apple and OS X!!!!


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## mstrroissy (Sep 22, 2006)

ps....I am not 100% but from what I have read there are some big diffences in the hardware on the Imac g3 tray loading and the Imac g3 slot loading.


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## sinclair_tm (Sep 22, 2006)

are you sure that you can see the whole drive on the imac?  and the only real problem with installing it that way is that the installer thinks its installing on a powerbook, and then installs powerbook system files, which in the long run could give you some issues.


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## mstrroissy (Sep 22, 2006)

I guess I wasn't trying to suggest that this was the end all be all of installs, I was trying to show my elation at seeminly getting around a PITA stipulation for install.  This is especially true when dealing with only 10 gigs of storage.  There absolutely has to be a way to install it on bigger drives...none of my normal machines have under 100 gigs...so how does Apple install the os?  And I never thought this method would cause errors....the software updater worked fine and downloaded all the appropriate drivers, and patches for the IMac g3.  What issues should I anticipate?  I think I am going to love it here.....LOADS OF GREAT INFO...thanks all!!!

Oh and I just looked at the drive properties and I have taken a screenshot of the system profiler and disk info...


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## nixgeek (Sep 23, 2006)

sinclair_tm said:


> without an apple keyboard, this is hard to do  .  so click once on the drive icon in the finder, and then goto the menu file>get info.  now that window with the disk size will come up.  right clicking on the icon should also give you the option to get info, but i don't remember, its been too long since i've used a classic booted mac.



True, but if you read my previous post I had mentioned which keyboards and mouses he could use so that he could do a Command-I (which was mentioned in the second post I made).   Yes, the Windows keyboards don't have a Command key, but usually the layout is on par.  I believe it would end up being the Windows key if using a Windows keyboard, but don't quote me on that as it's been a while since I've done that.


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## nixgeek (Sep 23, 2006)

mstrroissy said:


> I guess I wasn't trying to suggest that this was the end all be all of installs, I was trying to show my elation at seeminly getting around a PITA stipulation for install.  This is especially true when dealing with only 10 gigs of storage.  There absolutely has to be a way to install it on bigger drives...none of my normal machines have under 100 gigs...so how does Apple install the os?  And I never thought this method would cause errors....the software updater worked fine and downloaded all the appropriate drivers, and patches for the IMac g3.  What issues should I anticipate?  I think I am going to love it here.....LOADS OF GREAT INFO...thanks all!!!
> 
> Oh and I just looked at the drive properties and I have taken a screenshot of the system profiler and disk info...



sinclair_tm does have a point though.  Sometimes workarounds like that end up biting you in the fanny sometime in the future, especially since OS X would think that it was installed on a PowerBook.  But it won't be known until something happens.

You have to understand that it's more an issue of the hardware on the older G3 iMacs since initially they didn't really run OS X when they were introduced (OS 9 was still the main OS and with post-y2k iMacs, OS X was still in "beta mode" until about 10.2).  So for this reason, they weren't designed to meet the requirements of OS X.  This is why there were firmware updates to allow OS X to install properly.  Unfortunately, not everything can be taken care of (like the ATA controller on the iMac), which is why the stipulation for the first 8 GB of the hard drive to be used for OS X was there for earlier models.  THis is also why some larger hard drives won't work either since the ATA controller can only access up to a certain capacity.

This isn't much different from the way PCs running Linux used to require that the first 1024 blocks of the hard drive be used for Linux.  Of course, now BIOS is more up to date and computers and Linux have advanced way beyond this limitation that it's only a bad memory....not unlike the newer Macs and OS X versions that don't have this limitation.


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## brandN (Sep 28, 2006)

I have 6GB of ram, 350 MHZ and 198 roughly of ram. Is this enough to install panther 10.3.9?


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## nixgeek (Sep 28, 2006)

brandN said:


> I have 6GB of ram, 350 MHZ and 198 roughly of ram. Is this enough to install panther 10.3.9?



So you have a 6 GB hard drive, and 198 MB of RAM.  If I were you, I would see about updating the RAM to AT LEAST 256 MB.  That iMac uses standard PC-100 memory, so if you have an old Pentium II/III PC that has a 100 MHz front-side-bus laying around that's not being used, you can use the RAM from that.  You can even use PC-133 memory modules but you have to make sure that they are backwards compatible with systems that use PC-100 (some newer PC-133 modules have abandoned the backwards compatibility to make the memory cheaper).

As for the hard drive, see about getting the highest capacity hard drive supported by that iMac.  Check Low End Mac for the specs on your iMac and how much capacity it can support for hard drives.

Hope this helps.


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## brandN (Oct 1, 2006)

Ok, so I upgraded my Imac G3 to 256 MB with Vitrual Memory at 200 MB. Is this good enough now to install Panther? I have a 6 GB Hard Drive, is that good enough? Or do I really need to get a bigger one? Will any hard drive do? or does it have to be an Apple Hard Drive. I am getting me an Apple Keyboard and Mouse for about $20 bucks on ebay to match too. My goal is to have a Imac G3 running 10.3.9. So, thanks for all your help it's really, really appreciated.


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## brandN (Oct 1, 2006)

Will installing Panther with a new Harddrive with no OS on it be ok? I'm really wanting to get rid of the original owners info. Can you go from OS 9.2 to OS 10.3.9. Or do you have you buy each OS 10.0 10.1 10.2 then 10.3? How does it work?


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## eric2006 (Oct 1, 2006)

brandN said:


> Will installing Panther with a new Harddrive with no OS on it be ok? I'm really wanting to get rid of the original owners info. Can you go from OS 9.2 to OS 10.3.9. Or do you have you buy each OS 10.0 10.1 10.2 then 10.3? How does it work?



You only need a CD to install OS X, a working system is not required. You have to buy every first-digit upgrade. You can get 10.3 disks on eBay, for a lot less than they originally sold for.


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## brandN (Oct 12, 2006)

thanks for everyones help! i'm now running 10.3.9 on my imac.


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