I have just got a 2nd-hand lime green imac dv400, with OS 9.2 installed. It runs on a G3 400mhz with 128 sdram which I have since added another 256mb to make it a total of 320mb of sdram. (One is a factory PC100 64mb sodimm and the other is a NEC PC133 256mb sodimm).

Sorry for the long background but anyway, i was trying to install OS 10.2, problem arose when after the restarting the imac to initiate the installation, a grey apple screen appeared followed by a blue screen then a black 'DOS-like' screen which says
'Installer has quit due to an unexpected error. Error code: 138 Please restart your computer'

Even after restarting the imac, the problem comes back again, prompting me to restart.

Any idea what is the problem?
Some things that I did check out:
1. G3 should be able to run OS 10.2
2. 320mb of RAM should be sufficient
3. My firmware is updated
4. I have a pro keyboard and an apple mouse connected via USB. Shouldn't have a conflict?
5. I'm using a original disk. Not sure if its retail version or not though.
6. Was told that OS X needs to be installed onto the first 2 GB of HDD space, don't know what is that all about.

Should I reformat the hdd and do a bootup from OS X cd?
Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Error code: 138 usually means either the CD is bad,
scratched, or the drive isn't working properly.

Thanks bobw for the reply, greatly appreciated esp since I'm new to the mac platform.

One thing though, the cd appears fine in that it can be read with all its icons when I use it and the dvd drive appears fine too as i have been using it to play other discs.
Perhaps I'll borrow another OS 10.2 cd and try to install it.

By the way, I heard from a friend that OS 10.2 needs to be installed onto the first 8GB of the HDD?

Is that probably why I cannot install OS 10.2 as OS 9.2 and the other files take up too much space?

I was advised to reformat the HDD and partition it, allocating 7-8 GB for the installation of OS 10.2

Would that help?