<B>Why cant i boot?</b>

[alteredunknown]

I have a computer repair company and am completely baffled by this mac.. It is a powermac g4 quicksilver and i dont know what editions of mac os it had on it.. it probably has 9 and then osx installed on top of it.. Those are the cds that i have that were given to me from the owner.. I have tried all of the cds including restore, installs, and the hardware test.. i even borrowed tiger and all of my dad's install cd's for the same exact computer i am trying to fix.. i cant get it to recognize any cd in the drive while holding c.. tried removing the hard drive and installing from cd, nothing.. tried replacing the hard drive with a formatted pc drive and boot from cd, nothing.. tried replacing the cd drive and tried the cds, nothing.. there is nothing that i can do to get it to work.. i am going to sneak over and try my dad's hard drive in this machine, with my luck it is going to mess up his drive.. please tell me what i can do.. im ready to take it to an apple store and ask for help but that costs a bunch.. if i buy a new hard drive it seems as if i still wont be able to boot from a cd.. so i dont know what to do with this guys expensive computer

 

[kellhound1]

Hi,

Does your computer boot at all, even under OS 9? The G4 have had issues regarding switching from OS9 to OSX. From what you've stated, the computer has OS9 and then X on top of it? That's not possible. You see, when you upgrade to OSX the other OS has to be deleted. It could be that the computer doesn't have any OS installed at the moment, in which case you have to install 9, boot up, insert the OSX disk, and restart. That should get the install program running. I don't think there's an issue with the hard drive. Don't go out buying a hard drive. Try the OS 9 install first and see if Tiger will install from that.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Hi,

Does your computer boot at all, even under OS 9? The G4 have had issues regarding switching from OS9 to OSX.

No, they haven't. OS X is a much different operating system from OS 9, but to say that G4 machines have "trouble" with going from OS 9 to OS X is just plain wrong.

From what you've stated, the computer has OS9 and then X on top of it? That's not possible. You see, when you upgrade to OSX the other OS has to be deleted.

Again, completely untrue. You can have both OS 9 and OS X installed on the same drive/partition and freely boot between either one.

You cannot have two versions of OS X installed on one drive/partition, but you can definitely have OS 9 and OS X installed on the same drive. You can even have OS 9 installed as the sole operating system, then install OS X right over the top of it without affecting the OS 9 installation at all.

It could be that the computer doesn't have any OS installed at the moment, in which case you have to install 9, boot up, insert the OSX disk, and restart. That should get the install program running. I don't think there's an issue with the hard drive. Don't go out buying a hard drive. Try the OS 9 install first and see if Tiger will install from that.

You don't need to install OS 9 first if you want to install OS X -- simply place the OS X Install CD in the drive, reboot the computer, then hold down the 'c' key as the machine boots. This will force the machine to boot from the CD/DVD drive, at which point you can install OS X.

alteredunknown: what do the OS X install CDs look like that the owner gave you? Also, when you say you try to boot it and "nothing" happens -- what exactly is "nothing?" What does the screen display? Any icons or error messages?