Cannot start G4 at all

Question

Hi
I cant get my mac to do anything except display the grey screen with the apple while it spins as if it will start, but it wont, it just spins.
I have done the PRAM and it did seem to do some resetting, I could tell because my screen size displayed differently, but still same grey screen appeared. Then I did the fsck and it said did repair the startup volume and then displayed all is ok so I rebooted , but just got the same grey screen spinning. I let it go 15 min, is that long enough? I cant get it to boot from the cd at all.
I dont know what else to do.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
I am using Tiger, I have disconnected everything except the monitor and keyboard
thanks

Answer 1

Click on the blue Apple in the upper lefthand corner of your screen, click on About This Mac and it will tell you what version you're running.
If you want to bring your drive back to almost new condition do the following;
This is the best way to Erase and Install. First backup all your important stuff, if you can, as the following will erase everything on your drive; it will be unrecoverable. Put your install disk in your Mac and Restart while holding down the C key. In Tiger, When you get to the install screen, don't click install and go to the title bar at the top of the screen and click on Utilities (in earlier OS's click on the installer menu).
Click on Disk Utility and choose the hard drive you want your OS on. Then click on the Erase tab. In Tiger, click on the Security Options button near the bottom (it's similiar for Panther and Jaguar).
Once in there choose Zero Out Data (write zero's in earlier versions). This will map out any bad blocks on your drive and bring it back to almost new condition (providing there's nothing wrong mechanically with it, bad bearings, defective or damaged surface, etc.).
Once this is done, go back to the install screen and begin the "Erase and Install" installation. This will put a factory fresh system on a clean hard drive.
Cheers!
DALE