# cannot install os x 10.3 panther



## Chefjuan (Oct 2, 2007)

Hello!

Recently I was given an older g4 quicksilver 800mhz machine with os x 10.1.5 installed (with updates) and os 9.2.2.

I then aquired OS X 10.3 panther to install. 

My computer will not recognize any media put into the cd drive in OS X and in OS 9 it will recognize the install cd for the os 9 software but nothing else. Even rebooting while holding c does not work. Clearing p-ram did not help nor did resetting nvram... Any suggestions? I think its a software issue, with os 9 pitting against 10 but I just cant see why os x will not recognize ANY cd's put into the drive, they all come up as unreadable. If I restart the computer for os 9 and hear the startup sound then I can use the install cd for 0S 9 but nothing else will work, and if i dont hear the startup sound then os 9 will not work either!

HELP!
Chefjuan


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

so no other disks what so ever work, even audio cds? try as many other disks as possible. it could be the install disks are bad. also check that the drive is properly connected, and jumpered as master drive and on the ide channel by itself. it could also be a bad drive too.


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## Chefjuan (Oct 2, 2007)

hey, thanks for the tip. I have not tried music cd's yet so I will try them, I got the os x 10.1 install cd to work once, and I re-installed it but it didn't solve the proble, and I have not been able to try that since. Also, once JUST ONCE, I actually saw a cd icon appear on my os x desktop when I put the hardware test cd it, but again in os x all cd's just get ejected as unreadable. 
I thought it could be a bad drive but I cannot run disk utilities either to check it! is there a way to reformat the entire computer using the os 9 install cd or the os x panther software? a magical button combo or something?

Im not exactly sure what you are saying when I should check to make sure its "jumpered as master drive and on the ide channel by itself" how do I go about trying that. I do feel comfortable with the innerworkings of the g4 its just been a while since I have had to mess around with one.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

well, you have to open the mac up and pull out the cd drive. on the top of it will be a label that will say how to set the jumpers, which will be on the back of the drive next to where you plug in the cable. but with what you have said, i'd be betting on the cd drive being bad. as for formatting the hard drive, you can do that after getting the mac to boot from an os install cd. and because its a cd drive, there are not utilities that you can run to check it. the best thing is to swap it out with a known working cd drive. also, the ide controller that the cd drive is plugged into could be bad. if thats the case, you could get a hard drive controller card to plug the cd drive into. so i guess it really depends on how much money you want to throw at this thing.


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## Chefjuan (Oct 2, 2007)

yeah, I was hoping to get away with not replacing the cd drive, although even though I dont need it, those superdrives are pretty nice!
Im going to bring it over to a friends soon and we'll try to hit it with disk utilities from his lap top but he feels the same, that its a faulty cd drive. Its just wierd that it will read that silly os 9 install cd. os 9 will also read the other install disks, just when I try to run the installer, when the computer reboots it just brings up a blank screen (gray) with no happy mac symbol and no spinng beach ball or clock or even pointer for that matter.... so close yet so far. 

thanks again for the help!
Chef Juan


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