HELP fixing imac g3

Does the Tiger or any other system CD (or DVD depending on drive type) work as startup disc?

note: Some models won't use Tiger 10.4 due to processor & hardware limits.

You could, perhaps, be able to relocate the file you moved, for whatever reason, or just reinstall

the system again and then look for previous system folders later, to delete or recover good parts.

Been awhile since my G3 iMac (400DV) days... it was an OK machine with good audio 😎

Option key boot the 10.4 installer disc. That will allow you to do an Archive and install. Saving the network preferences and options will work if the preferences are not too damaged. Not saving those preferences will let you start fairly fresh, but still have access to old files you may want to try to recover.

You should seriously consider making a clone backup of your system once it is functional*:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

* Links to my pages may give me compensation.

I accidentally sent the startup disk to a file on the computer and now upon startup it shows a giant no sign.

Not sure exactly what you did. I didn't think it was possible to move the startup disk. I think I once tried this, but don't want to experiment now. You mean you moved this disk?

Your disk icon will look a little different, but you get the idea.

How well do you know the command line. You should be able to fix this from single user mode, if not too far gone. Also, you can boot up from a cd and get into terminal.

This page will tell you how to get into single user mode.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492

Basically, you hold down the command + s key then powering on your machine. The command key has a little apple symbol on the lower left. It is between the alt/option key and the space bar. On a PC keyboard, it will be the windows key, I think.

Then you would use the mv command to undo whatever you did.

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R