I have just installed 10.2 on my imac G3 400DV. The install went smoothly, but the computer crashes on restart, showing only the grey apple screen with horizontal white lines across the centre.

I have udated the firmware, and tried to repair the HD. I can now only start from os 9.2.

Any ideas?
Ta

This may or may not be the problem, but the last time my iMac did that (G3/600), it was caused by the RAM. Perhaps remove, reshuffle and clean the ram and sockets of dust then try it again. Otherwise it could be a RAM issue itself.

Not sure if that's the exact problem, but worth a shot I guess.

Thanks for the tip - it sounds worth a try, and the PRAM battery needs replacing anyway...
Deb

try to do a clean install.
i'm sure that will fix your issue

By clean install, do you mean reformat the drive completely? Can I then re-install OS 9 so I can use classic as well? The install I did was the 'archive and install' option, so I kept the OS 9.

I hope it is as simple as that... thanks, applecollector!

Deb

yes delete everything and start from scratch.
sadly not that simple.
try again with the install and lets see how it goes.
How about 10.3? do you have a copy? because maybe that would be better.

It didn't work! It still hangs in the same place. I don't have 10.3, sadly..... though it is running on another machine I have here. I wish... GGGrrrrrr. What a frustrating problem.

Deb

I am having the same problems with a purple iMac G3 that I purchased to give to my mum for christmas. I am trying to install Tiger onto it though and can't get past the grey screen. When this occurs I can't even boot from disk and have to press the CUDA switch to get everything running again.
I managed to get OS 9.2.2 onto it again and then run disk utility, which didn't pick up any errors. When I tried to install Appleworks onto it, the process quit stating that my HDD had errors on it. I am going to get another HDD to test it out, but possibly your HDD could be stuffed like mine is.

I have tried different RAM as well, and that didn't seem to solve my problems, so I am thinking it is the HDD.

Great! If the HDD is stuffed, why does OS 9.2 work on them?

Aaaaghhhhhh!

Did you do a few tests with disc utility before you erased the drive and then installed the OS ? Your HD is getting near the eight year old mark which is pretty long in the tooth and I would be surprised if a few errors did not appear. OSX is not as forgiving on hardware as the more modest needs of OS9 especially with Ram so systems that work in OS9 may not function if you try to load OSX.
I tried loading Jaguar onto one of my Lombards and its original 4Gb HD but it flatly refused. After upgrading to a faster 60Gb HD and more memory it loaded straight away.

Edit : Some Ram also is not compatible with OSX and if by some chance you do get it to load on the HD , when you reboot , it will either refuse to boot successfully or simply kernel panic all the time

Stewie

Thanks, Stewart. It does sound like it could be the ram. I did the disk utility tests and they found no probs with the hard drive. I will take it apart soon, when I get the time and look at the RAM. Is there any particular type I should look for that doesn't work with OSX?

Ta
Deb

I am still having this problem. I tried removing the extra ram and stlill get the same problem. . . . .

I have zapped the PRAM and reset the open firmware. I have repaired disk permissions, removed the airport card....

I am running out of options.... ebay here it comes.

Deb

Have you got a stick of Ram from one of your other compatible iMacs running OSX that you could try ? Remove all the Ram and try the known good module in it. If the iMac still plays up , I think it points to it being your Hard Drive that is causing the problems.

Edit: If you find the HD is OK and the Ram is OK too then you could always load the OS by hitching the iMac up to another via Firewire Target Disk Mode and cloning it to your target iMac. I have got around the OS refusing to load on certain computers by doing the FW TDM trick before .

Stewie

I could try that - I have a 350 running 10.3, but I will have to open it right up... I'm afraid o stuffing that one as it is the 'good' one..

Well, it seems perhaps it was the logic board playing up as the machine now will not power up at all, even though I have restored it to OS 9. There is a little spark when I put the power cord into the back of the machine, and no response at all when turned on, except for some static through the monitor. I have listed it for sale for parts in the FS forum if anyone is interested. No more G3s here, I have had issues with three now and have finally learned my lesson. Thanks again for your support.

Deb