I installed 10.3 on my iMac G4 and it had 10.2 on it. It installed fine but after it got done I was did up dates on it. I was re starting it and now all it does is stay on the white screen with the apple logo with the loading circle. Now I can’t get the cd tray out to put in the OS cd to re do it. I don’t have anything on it. I just want to get it to work again.
— Gary McNeil
Try holding down the eject button while starting up. You may just need to take it into a repair shop.
I mean I know how to work on it but I just don't know whats wrong. I mean what could it be. I tried holding down the eject key on startup but nothing happened.
I don't know. You need to get that drive open so you can boot with something else. A shop would know how, or could try booting from an external drive.
I found that if you go into the open firmware by holding the command option o f down after you here the system chime and let off when the firmware come up. Then you type in eject cd then just hit return.
Excellent! Thanks for reporting back on this. I'm sure others will find this useful too.
I have the same problem. iMac (g4) only starts up as far as the apple icon and loading circle thing. I don't know what to do and I don't want to loose anything on my computer. Please help!
That's a tough one. It really depends on your equipment level and experience with hardware. For instance, if you can hook up a firewire cable to another Mac, then you can put it in Target mode and rescue your data. But if you don't know what I'm talking about then your only option is to take it to a Mac shop, have them recover your data onto a hard drive, and then fix the problem (or just get a new Mac).
i have an imac G4 and all of a sudden it does not start its just loading when it is started
pls help or i'm screwed
Try booting from the original system disks, or any upgraded system disks you may have. Or, try taking the Mac to a Mac repair shop near you. If it is a G4, then it might be time to by a new one. Hopefully, you have been doing backups, right?