[GoDucks]

Good morning,

I just purchased an older iMac G3 for my daughter to use as a starter computer. It's a DV SE (500 Mhz G3, 512 megs RAM, and 30 Gig Drive.) It also has a DVD drive of sorts. I was wondering if the DVD drive is only for playing movies or if it can accept data DVD's too. I have successfully played a DVD movie on it but when I inserted a DVD OS X Install Disc, it did not recognize. Now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to install OS X on it.

[ScoobyDoo555]

Hu there,

If the DVD doesn't work with data DVDs, why not set it up in Target Disk mode?

Use the firewire port on the IMac and another Mac.

On bootup, press "T" on the IMac.....

This will put it into target mode

You can then install OSX using your main Mac, and the firewire'd drive will become accessible in the installer

Hope this helps

Dan

PS Looking at a machine like this for my daughter. Does the DVD playback work well?
Is it possible to multi-region the drive (I'm in the UK and buy DVDs from both Regions 1 & 2).......

[Will C]

Originally Posted by GoDucks

Good morning,

I just purchased an older iMac G3 for my daughter to use as a starter computer. It's a DV SE (500 Mhz G3, 512 megs RAM, and 30 Gig Drive.) It also has a DVD drive of sorts. I was wondering if the DVD drive is only for playing movies or if it can accept data DVD's too. I have successfully played a DVD movie on it but when I inserted a DVD OS X Install Disc, it did not recognize. Now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to install OS X on it.

Yes the drive should accept and read data DVDs.

Is the OS X install DVD a non-machine specific one? i.e. not an install disk for an iMac or Powerbook etc. but a proper retail OS X install DVD? IIRC, the DVD drives in G3 iMacs will not read DVD+R disks and may have trouble with DVD-Rs

HTH