MAC

[steppenwolf]

I didn't knew that we have apple sub forum...

Need someone who knows them.
I got Mac from a friend and I have never used it before. When I turn it on it just show a small icon blinking. Maybe something is wrong with OS.

I googled a little and found the image... Looks like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Apple_PowerMac_G4_M8493_QuickSilver_front.jpg/300px-Apple_PowerMac_G4_M8493_QuickSilver_front.jpg

I suppose it is older one but can I do something with it?
Does it have BIOS?
Which one and how to install the OS?

Thanks in advance!

[dell_xps]

Do you hear the hard drive kicking in when booting it up ?
If not it will probably be that.
HTH

[Sirus]

That's a Powermac G4 QuickSilver... Meaning Power PC cpu. you may be able to install Mac OS 10.5 leopard depending on the cpu speed. But best use 10.4 Tiger for speed. You cant install higher than OSX 10.5 because you need an Intel cpu.

The blinking icon is the mac not finding a bootable OS on startup. You could try resetting the PRAM, it is a small button on the logic board(looks like a small doorbell).. press and hold it for 10 seconds then try a boot again.... dont keep pressing it over and over again, it can mess things up if you do, only press it once every few minutes when using it.

It's also possible the mac may have 2 OS's installed, as some people install OS9 and OSX on them old macs, so maybe one has ~~~~ed up. So try holding option key(windows key) on keyboard at bootup to see if there's more than one OS... saying that, it's still prob best to just reinstall a new OS, Tiger is your best bet.

Its also easy to install Mac OSX. And the great thing about it is no serials or activation required, so download an iso(its somewhat legal since you own a mac and it should come with or be running Mac OS already anyway).. put in disk and hold C key on bootup to boot from disk, then go to disk utility and sort your partitions(format using Mac OSX extended journal), exit disk utility, and install.

[steppenwolf]

I just saw when opened that CPU does not have HDD so I put one inside but still don't know hot to boot. I have burned on a CD MAC OS 9.2, put in DVD and nothing happens. Just the icon blinks (some face and question mark).

[Sirus]

Are you holding down C key when starting up?. Also OS 9 can be confusing when trying to install mate...

Assuming all the burning went well, it must be that your machine wont support the version of OS9 you're trying to boot from. Back then OS9 went through some changes and the difference from OS 9.0, 9.1. 9.2.1, 9.2.2 is they install/or wont install on certain macs at that time.

So your mac either needs the OS 9 restore CD's it came with(different macs came with different dedicated restore CD's for that particular machine).. you can buy these on ebay or download them if you find the right torrent. Or you can get the retail version(which installs on any machine that supports it). You also may need a firmware update(which can mean installing a lower supported OS 9 version first to update firmware, then installing the higher version of OS 9).. sometimes you may get lucky, then the updates can be burnt to CD and run within OS and go up in steps to 9.2.2 .. remember you have to have the right firmware and start with the OS 9 your system supports. Some wont install early versions, only later versions and vice versa.

I had an old imac G3 and the older graphite model of powermac G4 a few years back and wanted to check out OS 9 and done a good bit of reading up and had to go through all the above to get it running, but I cant remember if it was the imac or powermac I done it on.

Though saying that, is there any good reason you want OS 9?.. you're best getting OS X Tiger and installing that. Get the retail version.. also forgot to mention in my last post that when installing you can choose to skip the printer drivers and language packs to save a lot of time installing it. Depending on the ram in the machine it can install in about 20 mins.