I am having this same problem...

Can my Imac be brought back to life?
Feb 11th 2004, 7:15 am | #1
The problem is this;

I have a bondi blue Imac G3 DV.

I was trying to install OSX Panther, upgrading from OS9. I had clicked on the install Icon and it looked as if it was installing - with a little rotating graphic.
Nothing else happened for 4 hours or so, and eventually I pressed the restart button.
Since then the machine does very little. It sounds as if it's going to start up, but only for about 10 seconds. The screen remains black, and the CD drive goes round for 3 seconds or so, before the whole thing switches off after about 10 seconds.

However, I did not restart the computer. It is still spinning that rotating wheel. It never asked me any install options. How long do I wait before I restart the computer?

Please help.

You'll first want to try a reboot to see if that fixes anything.

Is your CD scratched up? It'll be unlikely to sucessfully install if you've got a damaged CD.

You may also want to try flashing your Mac's PRAM.