Os x not installing for me

Question

I bought 4yrs ago a imac g3 and it had Panther installed i love this old mac you cant kill it. Anyway I got a powerbook g3 from my friend and it had os8 i updated it to os9.2.x and want osx. now come the fun part Apple said osx 10.3 is supported for powerbook g3 its bronze keyboard 400mhz usb 14.1 in display. I have looked every where and tried almost everything to get osx to work i formatted hdd to 7gigs the 3gigs , swapped all sorts of ram configurations. The install process goes like this OS X select language> english> select hdd> check packages > add/remove items> confirm install> after this all of a sudden it hangs with the spinning slashes(not the pinwheel). I have broused on different forums until my eyes fell out this has been off and on for 6mo. I heard of ghosting the install on my imac but dont know anything about that. Any questions or suggestions on what to do i am just short of Office Spacing the Power Book.

Answer 1

fivespeedmazda,
Cornelius summed up the major points on installing OSX on the Lombard, but there can be some sticking points with this model and especially the previous model a.k.a. Wallstreet. I don't know if I can add much, but I would try the suggestions below.
-Since both the Lombard and Pismo came with a bronze keyboard and a 400MHz CPU (among others), are you sure you have the Lombard (USB + SCSI, no FireWire)?
-You may have a Lombard with a processor that cannot run OSX with any memory in the top slot. Removing the top RAM module as Cornelius suggested apparently allowed the install to progress most of the way. If curious, you may wish to check if you have this processor. Running this utility requires OS9; see further down the page for additional suggestions.
Assuming the optical drive is sound (it should be since you installed OS9 plus most of OSX) and your CDs/DVDs are good, I would try these steps to get up and running:
1. Have RAM installed only in the bottom slot plus no peripherals...none.
2. Turn off the powerbook with the Panther disk in the drive; reset the PRAM when starting up (wait for 3 startup chimes), then release the keys and immediately press the 'c' key to start to the optical drive.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
After selecting English, go up to the menu and select Disk Utility and erase the HD, then run 'Verify'. Also be sure to check the box to install the MacOS 9 HD Driver, even if you don't plan on installing 9.x.
3. Quit Disk Utility and continue the installation...see if it will complete the job. If not, does it stall in the same place?
4. If the install fails, you probably have one of three issues: Marginal RAM that works OK in 9.x but not 10.x; a funky HD; a rare issue where the CPU will just not run OSX.
5. I would check the HD first since it is probably the original...9 years old. Boot to your 9.X CD > open the Utilities folder > launch Drive Setup > select the option to 'zero all data' when Initializing; be sure to select HFS Extended. This will take some time since it writes zeroes to every block on the HD. This will spare (reallocate) any bad blocks plus clean up the low-level format. (When Drive Setup is launched, you can go to Drive Setup Help in the menu for details.) After zeroing, run Test Disk; if it fails, zero/test again. Drive Setup will automatically install the OS9 HD driver plus the HD is ready for OSX.
6. Now boot to the OSX disk and try another install.
7. If it fails, swap out the RAM in the lower slot for another module. Reset the PRAM again to make sure the PRAM was not corrupted when you removed all power. Now try the OSX install.
If you want to run 9.x, it can be installed before or after OSX.
Here is the utility for testing your CPU: Download 'PPC checker' to the HD, then run it while booted either from an installed OS9 on the HD or your OS9 CD. If you wish, you can download it to your working Mac, then burn a CD for the transfer.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3CARDS/PPCchecker/
If you have this CPU...
PowerPC 750L (LoneStar, Rev2.2) Copper G3 PVR = 0x00088202
...you have the RAM-limited CPU.
Let us know how it goes...