Power Mac G4 won't boot from DVD

[kachung]

Hi, I am a new Mac user and know nothing about Mac. I got this Power Mac G4 (350Mhz, CDROM, etc.) from Uni. The hard disk is obviously erased with no OS in it. When I start the machine all I can see on the screen is a small icon with a face in it and will change to a question mark, keep changing from face to ? and ? to face.

I think it is because there is no OS there and thus can't boot. I borrowed a Tiger DVD from my friend and tried to boot from it. Obviously can't because the Mac doesn't have a DVD rom. So I bought one, which is designed for Apple computer specifically. Installed it, put in the DVD, start the machine and press the "c" button. The DVD Rom is reading from the disc, but after a long time all I can see on the screen is ... NOTHING !! Only a grey blue sort of colour on the screen.

Can someone help me please?

Tim

 

[CanadaRAM]

Probably, your 'borrowed' Tiger DVD is a machine-specific OSX 10.4

You'll probably need to buy the retail 10.4 Tiger package. But keep in mind this machine may need a firmware upgrade before it can take OSX 10.4 - do some research on the Apple Support site.

Or look on eBay for either retail earlier version OSs, or a disk set that came with a machine like yours.

Alternatives -- you MAY be able to hook it to another Mac, get the G3 machine to boot into Firewire Target Disk Mode by holding the "T" key down through boot-up, and then install an OS over the wire from the other Mac.

 

[ITASOR]

Alternatives -- you MAY be able to hook it to another Mac, get the G3 machine to boot into Firewire Target Disk Mode by holding the "T" key down through boot-up, and then install an OS over the wire from the other Mac.

I don't think these PCI Power Mac G4's support FW Target Mode.

 

[kachung]

Probably, your 'borrowed' Tiger DVD is a machine-specific OSX 10.4

You'll probably need to buy the retail 10.4 Tiger package. But keep in mind this machine may need a firmware upgrade before it can take OSX 10.4 - do some research on the Apple Support site.

Or look on eBay for either retail earlier version OSs, or a disk set that came with a machine like yours.

Alternatives -- you MAY be able to hook it to another Mac, get the G3 machine to boot into Firewire Target Disk Mode by holding the "T" key down through boot-up, and then install an OS over the wire from the other Mac.

Do you mean that there are different verions of Tiger DVDs for different hardware?

Tim