[spookymulder]

Hi,

I have an imac 333 slot loader (256MB/6GB - no firewire) which had 9.1 on it and running fine. I decided to take the plunge despite its age and put jaguar on it as well. when I put Jaguar on all seemed fine except when I booted back into 9. all of the sudden the mac would boot to the dektop and keep giving me "the application finder has a problem" messages like every 5 minutes or so which then quits the finder and immediately elaunches it. I tried fixing permissions in X but no dice. I did a Norton check on it which showed no errors. In exasperation I decided to format the HD and just go back to 9.

I put in the software restore disk and did a complete reformat of the HD.

Now things have gotten worse!

If I boot from the cd which came with the imac when it gets to the desktop I get the strange finder message and quitting problem. the desktop sits there but keeps quitting every 10 minutes now! I tried to reinstall 9 but it gets to about 90% and then hangs. I've tried this several times. The machine will not boot from an ibook, G4 sawtooth cd at all but curiously always boots fine from a Norton System works CD!

I've zapped the PRAM etc but cannot install system 9 onto the machine at all. Luckily, a colleague's wife has the same model so I borrowed her startup cd - same problem!! Since most of the software is classic I really need 9 as opposed to X.

does anyone have any ideas?

[drcarl]

I own a 333 iMac as well. What drove me to purchasing my G4 iMac was decreased system performance and increased crashes. I can attribute a lot of those problems to an aging hard drive. Do you still have the original hard drive in your iMac?

Is it possible that the Norton CD does not access certain files or even use the hard drive but the Mac OS CD's do?

Other thoughts:

Did you update the firmware when you installed OS X? (Probably did since you know about zapping the PRAM)

Did you try to re-install the original OS 8.1 (followed by upgrades) or did you install OS 9?

Something in the back of my head says it's a hard drive problem. Gotta weigh the cost/benefits of upgrades/repairs with buying new. Maybe you can find a cheap lower-capacity (by today's standards but better than the 333 iMac's 6Gig) hard drive. I'd recommend a new or barely used one. Don't forget to partition the hard drive first! (I can't remember the maximum size for the primary partition, 8 Gig?)

[Anand]

Originally posted by spookymulder:
Hi,

I have an imac 333 slot loader (256MB/6GB - no firewire) which had 9.1 on it and running fine. I decided to take the plunge despite its age and put jaguar on it as well. when I put Jaguar on all seemed fine except when I booted back into 9. all of the sudden the mac would boot to the dektop and keep giving me "the application finder has a problem" messages like every 5 minutes or so which then quits the finder and immediately elaunches it. I tried fixing permissions in X but no dice. I did a Norton check on it which showed no errors. In exasperation I decided to format the HD and just go back to 9.

I put in the software restore disk and did a complete reformat of the HD.

Now things have gotten worse!

If I boot from the cd which came with the imac when it gets to the desktop I get the strange finder message and quitting problem. the desktop sits there but keeps quitting every 10 minutes now! I tried to reinstall 9 but it gets to about 90% and then hangs. I've tried this several times. The machine will not boot from an ibook, G4 sawtooth cd at all but curiously always boots fine from a Norton System works CD!

I've zapped the PRAM etc but cannot install system 9 onto the machine at all. Luckily, a colleague's wife has the same model so I borrowed her startup cd - same problem!! Since most of the software is classic I really need 9 as opposed to X.

does anyone have any ideas?

I hate to say this, but you may have to get a new HD. Try this, boot off a OS X Cd and use the disk utility to erase the disk. Make sure you have the install OS 9 drivers box checked. After you have done this try to re-install OS 9.

[tooki]

Originally posted by spookymulder:
I have an imac 333 slot loader (256MB/6GB - no firewire)

No you don't.

Cuz such a beast doesn't exist... either it's a 333MHz tray-load, or a 350MHz slot-load.

Do you hear any unusual noises, like a clicking?

tooki