PC user needing help with Mac...

S

SgtCheeseNOL

Registered
Hi everyone, and thanks in advance to those who will help me with my situation.

My company just purchased numerous Mac's, and they want me to fix them. The only problem is, I do not know what is wrong with them. They are Apple PowerMac's with G4 processors, 60GB harddrives, and 256MB Ram. Model number M8493.

My problem is this...
When I turn it on, I begin to see a floppy diskette in the middle of the screen, and a question mark that pops in the middle of it. I have no boot disks, or anything. All they gave me were the towers. I have tried replacing the battery, and doing the (Command Option R and P) combination to no success. I let it chime forever, and holding those buttons down didnt even reset the PRAM.
Anyone have any ideas as to fix this please? Thanks again for whoever helps me with this.
 
Try holding down the 'X' key on your keyboard when you reboot/startup. This tells the system to boot into OS X

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
J
 
'Anyone have any ideas as to fix this please?' - are you sure that 'System 9.x' and / or 'MacOS X v. 10.x' are / is even installed?

You have 'Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver)' models.
There are three versions: 733 MHz, 867 MHz, or dual 800 MHz.

To know more about your model Macs, obtain 'MacTracker', when you can.

Lucky .......!
 
If you're getting the floppy disc icon, it typically means that no operating system is installed *at all*. You will need to get an operating system to put onto it in order to make it work. The latest Mac OS X (10.4) will work fine on the Quicksilver. Load the CD, and hold down "C" while powering the system on to make it boot from CD.
 
Just to clear this up again: You won't be able to do much with these systems without an installation CD. If you intend to use OS 9, you need an installation disk for that, because obviously, it _tries_ to boot OS 9, but doesn't find a volume to boot from. If you intend to use OS X, I'd get Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther), because with 256 MB RAM, you won't get far with Tiger (10.4).

What you should try is to boot holding down the option key. This will take you to a screen showing you all bootable volumes. If that screen shows you no bootable volumes, you can't do anything without installation discs. If it _does_ show you a volume for OS X, you can try to boot into that, but without the administrator password, you won't be able to do much, either.
 
These guys are spot on, looks like you don't have an operating system installed.

If your budget permits it, I'd look into getting a copy of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and upgrading the towers' RAM to at least 512MB, otherwise give Panther a go (they go cheaply on eBay).
 
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