Mac Forums

I have an iMac G4 (the dome with the pivoting screen)

it's in great condition, and was working fine, but i am selling so i want to restore it to its original blank settings.

I have 3 panther osx 10.3 discs with it, black with a big X on. i thought to resotre it you just used these, but it wouldn't let me, saying that because the imac currently has OS 10.3.9 i can't install 10.3 as it is an older version

So i went onto disc utility and erased the whole hard drive thinking that will get rid of osx 10.3.9, meaning i could install 10.3. no such luck

Now when i switch the computer on, it just comes up with the little folder icon that flashes a finder logo and question mark - i'm guessing because there's no OS on it at all! Disc utility says hard drive is working fine, obviously its just completely empty!

the first panther disc says its an upgrade disc....so i'm guessing because there no OS on there at all, thats why they wont work... if i put the disc in it says i cannot install OS 10.3 because there is no OS on there basically.

This is a perfectly good iMac, i know there is nothing wrong with the hard drive, but i bet if i took it to someone else they would just bust the hard drive so they could say it was an have a easy and expensive repair bill out of me! (it's happened before with another mac we owned!)

Would buying a full retail version of Panther off ebay solve the problem? obviously not an upgrade version but a full version! How do i tell the difference? and i don't want to waste £20-odd if it wont work. I can't really sell the Mac either if its not working! My boss wants to buy it but only if the OS is working

Any ideas and help!