Installing OS 8.5 on a blank hard drive

Hi. I'm a complete newbie to the world of Macs and am having a problem. I got an iMac G3 off a teacher in trade for a old laptop, but its not booting. When I first turned it on, with a Mac keyboard and Micro$oft mouse attached, I got a blank screen with a flashing icon in the center. It looked like a folder with a question mark and Macface, blink back and forth between the two. I'm assuming there is no OS on the machine. It came with a system restore disk. I popped it into the slot loading drive, but nothing happened. It spun, but it just kept blinking. I also borrowed a Mac OS 8.5 disc from a friend and tried that. No difference. Is there some keys I should be pressing, or is my Mac fried?

OS 8.5 is too old for a slot loading machine. So that won't work. Lets focus on using the software restore disk.
The first thing to do is to zap the pram. to do this, turn off the machine, turn it on, immediately press the p,r apple and option keys all together. Hold them down until the machine resets itself (a second or two, it will reboot).
Now try using the restore CD. INsert the disk, then reset the computer (to do this after its turned on, there's a small button on the side of the machine with a triangle on it) Insert it and hold down the "C" key. Hopefully that boots up now. That will let you see what if anything is on the disk, and let you reinstall if necessary.

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Welcome to Apple Discussions.
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-mj

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NicholasLiban -
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Le husky wrote:
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Ciao.

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Installing OS 8.5 on a blank hard drive

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