[SOLVED] Want to reinstall OSX on an eMac running 8.04, but can't

**monkeytangofoxtrot** · July 28th, 2008

I recently got ahold of a nice little eMac G4, so I thought I would try Hardy Heron on it, being as it's a secondary machine to play around with. I got it running (after a fair bit of work) but after a few days with it, I decided I would prefer OSX.

Here's my problem: I can't start up the OSX install CD. I've tried other CDs in the drive, they get recognized by the system. I can start up from the Ubuntu alternate installer CD. I can boot up from a liveCD (but I cannot do anything with it because it doesn't like to display anything on the screen, hence why it took a bunch of work getting Ubuntu running on the eMac in the first place).

Trying from the OSX CD, it hangs on "Booting CDROM. . ." at the First Stage Ubuntu Bootstrap screen. Last time I let it sit there for half an hour and it didn't budge.

I thought maybe wiping the drive from the liveCD, but since I can't get anything to show up onscreen with the liveCD, that's out.

Anybody got any ideas how I can get OSX back on this machine?

**tiresia** · July 28th, 2008

I'm not sure, that I understood your problem.
Do you wait to start from OsX-Installer until Yaboot starts up?
May be you should try to press C, as soon as you start your eMac.

**monkeytangofoxtrot** · July 28th, 2008

What I want to do is boot up directly from the OSX installer CD. I guess I should have clarified, holding down c only blinks a grey screen twice before getting to Yaboot, and then I get ccccccccccccccccc at the command line if I'm not paying attention.

**monkeytangofoxtrot** · July 28th, 2008

Nope, just realized my problem after popping the CD into my iMac. It's a problem of "someone on eBay claimed these installation DVDs as installation CDs even though I asked if it was the CD version and not the DVD version."

Back to the drawing board, will close thread if I can figure out how.