i got a old imac g3 from an old guy...
it has user password,if i try to boot from cd with os 9 it wont boot,not even with holding "c".
is there a way to take the hdd out and plug it to another pc and remove the password ?
or something to reinstall the os

You should be asking this on a Mac support site. This is a site about beta and abandonware operating systems.

Uhm, Mac OS 9 is abandonware (in case you still live in a cave)...

I don't know if this works, and it will probably sound stupid, but try removing the CMOS battery so you can reinstall the OS.

This is an abandonware site so the question is valid if if you did your research first... but you could have at least posted it in the right section of the forum.

Moved

Oh i know, my posts are so dumb -.-

It's okay.

It's okay.

On the subject: aren't there any password "cracks", "hacks", "removers" or whatever available for OS 9?

Well, unlike OS X, you can't change passwords from your install CD...the best you can hope to do is boot from an install CD, and salvage files you need, delete the System Folder, and reinstall OS 9.

i cant boot... it wont boot..i tried lots for guides and still no luck..
i dont have original os 9 cd's,could this be the problem ? or damaged CD-ROM ?

So it doesn't boot to the original installed OS?

Can you boot off a FireWire hard drive? (creating it could be tricky depending on your system setup). I am sure that late OS 9 systems at least supported network booting.

Do you have more information, such as does it present a blinking ? mark, black screen, no response from keyboard, etc?

There probably is a way to junk the passwords from the users, it's probably stored in the Preferences folder. OS 9 isn't really that hard to work with, it is possible to keep an entire system folder installed whole on a backup media and just copy it all over, bless it and restart.

it boots on login screen,its deutch os 9
it has 2 users,both with passwords
keyboard and mouse works fine
i can enter firmware

You could try seeing if you can get in to single user mode and try using passwd <user (note the shortname such as soulman as opposed to "the soul man", etc)>.

> try passwd

It's OS9. No BSD subsystem.

Ah yes, quite true. Though it is a good point why one should upgrade to OSX.
> not greentexting

If he wanted to upgrade to OS X I'm sure he could do so without asking us.



CD drive work?

You can load a bootable OS 9 (or OS X, but I haven't seen many of those personally) CD and get to the desktop. This site or macintoshgarden.org has OS 9 CDs. If you don't have a working CD drive then you'll have to boot off FireWire. Don't have that -- get one. A USB 2.0/FW external for pre USB 2.0 Macs is a very, very useful thing to keep on hand.

Once you get to the desktop, you can browse at will. OS 9 is amazing lax. If there's nothing in the System Folder of interest, like fancy extensions, control panels and widgets, then you can trash it and dump an OS 9 folder in there you can get off the web.

Alternatively.........there is another exploit that works fabulous in ...some situations like yours.

it wont boot in single user mode.. (tried with command and s)

Do you have any other Macs that have Firewire ports? I'm thinking it'd be worth trying to connect the two computers via Firewire, then starting the iMac up in Target Disk Mode and installing OS 9 that way.

no,this is the only mac i have.

Single user mode won't work with OS9 being pre-POSIX compliant (i.e. no BSD subsystem).

If the password request appears at Startup, then it's hardware-based and it will appear no matter what you try to boot from, even a Mac OS 9 CD. If that's the case, you should either ask the previous owner to find that password and give it to you, or talk to your nearest AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) to have them assist you.

If the password prompt appears later in the Startup sequence, you can get around it by placing a bootable Mac OS 9 System Folder on a USB flash drive and booting from that. Then you can delete (or copy over) the existing System Folder and make sure it's blessed, then restart the iMac, and then reinstall Mac OS 9 from a CD image.

Apple won't be able to do anything about it, it's a Legacy OS and is not eligible for support. I doubt any of their service reps will be able to help you re: OS 9.

You need 10.4 or higher to handle USB bootable media. You'll also have the problem that it has USB 1.1.

As I said earlier, take a FW hard drive, dump a boot system folder (Mac Garden has some boot folders), and see what happens. The fact that you say this is your only Mac is your first problem. Are you intending to salvage the old content? Because the iMac G3 uses IDE hard drives, no reason you can't pull it apart, put a new hard drive in it, install a new OS. Later...when you get a IDE enclosure via USB or the like, you can mount it and look at it.

I didn't say Apple; I said Apple Authorized Service Provider.


Not true. You can boot from a USB flash drive over USB 1.1, using Mac OS 9. It's been done many, many times, including by me. You do not need Mac OS X at all.

no i dont want to save any of the files.
i just want a clean os install on it
is it possbile to install the os 9 or 10 via usb thumb ?

How are you going to install the operating system and format the volume if you don't have another Mac to read HFS+? You can use Linux, but I can't say whether it'll work. There are also Windows "alternatives" (some are solutions) that can do this.

Do you have a working CD drive? If you do, then go to the Mac Garden and download a .iso of OS 9. Then burn a CD with it and go to town.



That may be a tricky one.



Is it possible to do this procedure of setup on a non-Mac?