How Can I remedy a partial Leopard Installation?

[iqdw]

In brief I have an imac g4 20'' flat screen with 1.25ghz with 512mb ram+ 250mb in the extra slot. This was the top of the range in 2003 and it came with panther preinstalled. (it might have been Tiger. The original Osx was 10.3?) I tried to upgrade to leopard which went ok until I found out that the idvd function could not be installed.(I cant remember what the reason was but i think it was memory related) I continued on anyway and everything works except I cant play dvds but more importantly i cant read the support discs or any other programs. I can still play cds so i don't think its the player.I presume this is a memory issue so now want to install more memory ie 2 x 1go (1 internal and 1 external) and either retry a full leopard installation hoping that there is enough memory to do so or failing that a clean and erase if the extra memory will let me read the restore disc. My mac dealer tells me i cant go back to my previous configuration and i should just keep the imac as a collectors item. Surely there is a solution out there somewhere?
Any ideas?

 

[Doctor X]

Of course you can go back . . . provided you erase the HD. I do not believe it works with Archive and Install.

If you do not have critical data on the HD--which you should back up anyways--you can do that. Of course, Gurus can correct me on the details.

According to MacTracker, assuming you are the iMac (20-inch USB2.0), you started with 10.3 and can use the latest release of MacOSX.

It also states you can expand to 2.0 GB actual RAM--1.0 GB (Apple)--so you will definitely want to maximize your RAM for OS 10.5.

--J.D.