reformat and reinstall

[Steven1621]

how do i reformat my old imac and install os 9? what is the easiest way to do this? i am pretty new to the mac. thanks.

 

[iJon]

boot from a system 9 cd and format and install.

iJon

 

[Steven1621]

problem with that

i know that is what i am suposed to do, but when i startup i am never given the option. it just boots up in to os 9, but never installs

 

[iJon]

are you holding down the c key. if you boot onto the cd you should quit installation. open up disk utility or whatever its called in os 9 and initilize hard drive. then install from there. go into more detail on what you ware doing.

iJon

 

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....2 questions - how old is the imac and how old is the OS 9 cd? If it is not the cd that came with the imac and the imac is newer than the cd, it may not be able to boot that particular imac....oh yeah!

 

[Steven1621]

it is an original imac 233 with 64 megs of ram. i got it from a friend who upgraded and no longer wanted this computer. i got it all as is. it is running os 8.5, but there was an os 9 disk with it.

what i have done so far:

let disk load at startup: it boots into os 9 and semi-runs the os. it says that it is in os 9, but it is not actually installed. i am not sure exactly what is going on.

attempt to instill while in os 8.5: i get the error message: firmware is out of date. it says refer to some "cd extras" folder on the disk, but i can't find it.

holding c at startup: little mac computer face comes up and does seem to go away.

i just want to reformat everything and start fresh in os 9. i am new to the mac os so i am pretty lost. thanks for all the help!