No Operating System? - Problem

[SamHale]

Hello,

We recently bought a second-hand IMAC for work purposes, unfortunately it doesn't appear to have an operating system already installed.

When switched on we get what appears to be a small flashing folder, with a smaller black question mark. (We assume this means there is no OS as we cannot do anything at this point)

We downloaded a MAC OS, which we burnt onto a CD, but now we cannot get the IMAC to recognise the CD. Is there a special shortcut to book from CD before it trys to load the OS ?

Many thanks,
Sam.

 

[jimoblak]

How did you download an OS?

The OS should be burned onto a Mac HFS CD so that the iMac can recognize the disc. You cannot burn the OS to a CD from a Windows computer.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[scottian]

jimoblak is correct, you need the disk to be HFS in orer to boot from it. Just for info once you have a Mac boot disk you boot by starting the mac and holding the C key down during startup. you will then be informed that the computer is starting from the CD drive. to answer your question, the flashing ? mark on a folder indicates that no system folder was found.

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