Need some assistance with a Summer 2000 iMac G3

[ValTheBee]

Hey all!
I have a 500Mhz graphite iMac G3 and its just confusing the heck out of me

when i got it the OS was crashing, so i used Firewire to install a new version and it worked, but then i wanted to install OS 9 and all the CDs ive tried have all failed for one reason or another, using the iMacs drive or a G4 powermac over firewrire

And now, trying to install OS X on its own CD drive is failing with kernal Panics, with 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 all failing, and OS X 10.0 will boot installer, being to install then crash with a memory access exception.

So im now wondering if i have a RAM fault or perhaps something more sinister

 

[Byrd]

The optical drives in iMac are highly prone to failure, and pain picky about certain drive media - are you using writable CDs? Try new media; is the HD known good.

 

[ValTheBee]

The optical drives in iMac are highly prone to failure, and pain picky about certain drive media - are you using writable CDs? Is the HD known good.

Im using normal CD-Rs that've worked a-ok in other macs, the HDD im unsure of

 

[mikes-macs]

The Mac OS 9 for iMacs are specifically for that model and are part of a restore. Retail Mac OS 9 Install won’t work properly. You will have better luck using the restore/install CD for that model. Furthermore drive setup on the restore CD will format your HDD. As mentioned above, iMac CD drives fail and are very picky about burned CDs.
I suggest you find the correct restore CD for your iMac model and try to boot from it.

Mac OS X 10.2.8 is fine on G3 iMacs so you should not be having an issue unless you have underlying hardware memory problems.

I think iMacs of that era are prone to the 128 GB maximum hard drive limit and Mac OS X should be installed in the first partition of your HDD and this partition can be no larger than 8 GBs.