After trying now for 14 hours downloading at least 10 different OS's and nothing working, I really don't know what else to do, I won't buy a retail disc, because it's too expensive, and I really can't afford it right now, barely had enough to fix my AC. I've tried too many things. It's the most frustrating thing I have ever tried to do, working for 14 straight hours with NO progress made whats so ever. I've downloaded OS 9, OS 10, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Yellow Dog, Linux mint, Ubuntu, everything. I've burned like 10 useless CD's trying to boot it from the Open Firmware, for nothing to happen. I'd like a nice, simple tutorial on how to Install Panther/Tiger on an iMac G4 Flat panel using a Flash Drive, with no operating system installed, and no access to a Mac. That'd make my year.

If you bought the computer from someone see if they have the original disc. They obviously took the original hard drive out but hopefully they still have the software. I had an issue with my iMac where it also showed the ? on the disk. I ended up installing via an ethernet cable, though I had purchased Lion so it was pretty easy.

Command + Option + P + R will reset the PRAM and may allow you to continue with the installation. I had to actually remove the RAM as well, replace it, and clear the system before I could even get to the OS. It is a longshot and I don't know if that key combo would work but it is worth a shot.

If it still won't work you may end up having to purchase a used OS disc from somewhere. I can't imagine that OS being too expensive due to the age of it.

I can't find it anywhere for cheaper than 100$, and I'm not paying that. I've managed to download quite a few from the internet, but I don't know how to correctly get it to boot on my iMac, even in Open Firmware, it doesn't allow me to do anything, if I burn 10.4 to a disc, and then power up the iMac while holding C, it give me a screen with a refresh button, and a forward arrow, and they both do nothing.

With the age of the computer it could be possible that the disc drive is dead or dying. The 2007 Macbook I am using right now lost drive functionality about a year ago. It sometimes reads discs but will not work most of the time. Do you have an external DVD or CD drive?

Not that I know of, I might be able to find one out in my garage though, I'll have to check tomorrow, if I ever fall asleep. How would I go about correctly putting OS X tiger on a USB Drive and booting it up from that? I downloaded a .toast file, changed it over to .iso, and moved it to my USB Drive, and it said something about it can't locate partition.

Never tried though I have a coworker that used to use that OS. I will check when he gets in. From what I've been reading, it looks like it is much easier to boot from an external HD than a flash in that generation. Since you can partition the HD it might be easier to boot from that. I've never tried a flash install but it is pretty easy to change the file system on the external to match the Mac.

I don't have any external hard drives, at least non that I know of. I do have this laptop I'm using, would that work as an external hard drive? I don't know a damn thing about computers, well I know what I need to.

> Won't pay 100 dollars

> Worked on this for 14 hours

> US minimum wage is 7.25

> 14 x 7.25 = 101.50

You have effectively worked for less than minimum wage, FYI. Once you hit 28 hours you will have worked for half of minimum wage - OR - you can think of it as you finally bought the retail disk but for Double the Cost ($200) !

It would not work like that. The best bet would be to borrow an external disc drive to see if maybe the drive is just broken.

Well, after a while, I managed to get it to work. I changed the .iso into an .img, burned it onto a USB drive, and boot off of a USB drive. After 5 different people said that it would never boot off of a USB drive.