[Macaki]

I recently inherited an iMac (G4/1.25GHz/20") and am now trying to bring it back to life. I was told that Tiger may have been the last OS that was installed on it; also, I took out the iMac's bottom plate and noticed that a 512MB stick has been added.

When I first turned it on, I heard the startup chime, then the drive spinning, then some beeps (not sure how many; between 2 and 4) and then the fan spinning fast; then the gray Apple logo and the progress indicator appeared on the screen, and the fan sped down. Then the "Mac OS X" window with the blue progress bar came up; progress was slow but the blue bar eventually reached the end of the process. Then I got blue screen for a moment and then black screen reading "Darwin/BSD (jborgmans-Computer.local) (console)" and underneath that "login." After a few moments the Console disappeared and the screen turned blue; the cursor was visible and movable by using the mouse. The screen stayed blue until it went to Sleep. I then moved the mouse and the screen woke up to being blue again. Unable to do anything I shut it down by pressing and holding the power button.

The second time I turned it on, I got:
1. Startup chime
2. 1.5 beeps
3. Gray Apple logo (for 22 seconds)
4. Fan spinning fast (for 40 seconds)
5. Mac OS X window w/ blue bar (for 2 seconds)
6. Blue screen w/ cursor
I shut it down.

Then I tried a third time booting in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key and here is how it behaved:
1. Startup chime (I'm holding Shift until gray logo)
2. 1 or 1.5 beeps
3. Gray Apple logo (for about 40 secs)
4. Mac OS X window w/ blue bar and Safe Boot written underneath (progress was slow but blue bar reached the end)
5. Black screen reading "Darwin/BSD (jborgmans-Computer.local) (console)," and underneath that, "login."
6. Screen went to Sleep after a few minutes.
7. On wakeup black screen reading "com.cisco.nke.ipsec: removed or detactivated interface: (en0), and below that, "Couldn't alloc class "com_cisco_drive_vnp"."

Any ideas as to what all this means and how it can be fixed, if possible?

[ibook_steve]

Do a clean install of the OS. A format would be nice too. If you need to get stuff off of the machine, put it in target disk mode (hold T at boot) and connect a firewire cable to another computer.

Otherwise, I'd just wipe it and start over.

Steve

[Macaki]

Steve, thank you for replying.

Yes, I agree, a format and a clean install need to be done. Now the problem is that I can't get the optical drive to eject. How can I format and install? Is there any way to get the tray to pop out? If not, here is what I have at my disposal:
- an identical iMac with its original system/software install discs (Panther)
- a full retail Tiger install disc
- an external optical drive (firewire)

Even though I've been using macs for many years, I have never done a "format and install" before; I once did an Archive and Install on a eMac and that's it. So the more details one could provide, the better.

Thank you.

[MacPC]

Your are talking the the lamp shape G4 iMac, right?

I got one from my friend who thought it was broken so I fixed it up. like ibook_steve said, unless you need something from the harddrive, it's better to do a clean install.

The optical drive is a pain if you can't get it to open. You would need to open the iMac, once you get to the optical drive, you will find a little button in the front of the drive that pops it open. A better solution will be getting an external optical drive to reinstall OS X.

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by Macaki 

Is there any way to get the tray to pop out? If not, here is what I have at my disposal:

Try starting up the iMac while holding down the left mouse button.

There's probably a command you can type in after booting while holding Command-S too but I don't know it.