Hi there, I'm new to Mac's and to the
forum. I'm completely at a loss at the
moment and hoped somebody here
could help me. Here goes-

Processor - PowerPC G3
Memory - 256 MB

I recently brought this mac second hand
and i've messed it up already. when i
recieved it it had OS 9.2 on. I found she
had given me a cd with OS 10.0.4 so I
tried yo install it. It kept freezing. A friend
of mine gave me his OS X disk, version
10.0.3 so i treid this.

I'm now all very confused. When i turn on
my computer it has the grey screen
starting up that it had with the 9.2 version.
Then it switches into the OS X mode. It
seems to believe it is opperating in
version OS X but doesnt have any of the
applications such as i tools etc on.

I've tried to switch back into 9.2 mode and
i've had no luck. I've been told it may be
worth reformatting, is this true? or should
i try something else?

I would be so very greatful if somebody
could offer some advice.

Thanks

Rach

I am a little confused with your post. Does the system boot ok into OS 10.0.3? If so, your OS 9 applications will not run unless you have "Classic mode" installed (which you would have specified during setup).

If you wanted to reformat, you would need the original CDs that came with the iMac (software restore, software install etc). You can format the hard drive using disk utility (which is in the file menu during setup).