Mac OS 8.5 Internet Troubles

[creative]

Not sure this is the right place to ask, but my friend has a G3 Imac that just started giving him error messages when he tries to go online. He has dial-up only. The following messages appear when trying to re-install OS 8.5:

"The application Mac OS setup assistant could not be opened because "File Sharing Lib" could not be found.

Click on Internet access beneath apple icon and click n internet setup assistant.

The application intenet setup assistant could not be opened because SOM could not be found



When you click to open email you get the following message:

Your internet software is not configured correctly. Please use the MACOS installer to re-install your internet software.


When we click on remote access status get the following message:

Apple remote access version 3.0 is not installed on this computer.

Can anyone help??

Thanks,

[Turboladdade]

Are you trying to re-install Mac OS 8.5 while booted from the Mac OS 8.5 CD?

[creative]

We retart computer while holding down the C key. Then click reinstall 8.5. It appears to be working fine till the very end when it gives us the error message.

[Turboladdade]

Are you formatting (erasing) the drive before you do this? I don't think Mac OS 8.5 will happily reinstall itself on top of an existing system installation, especially if it's had any updates since then, which it probably has.

Mac OS 8.5 is extremely out dated, you may have better luck if you find an early copy of Mac OS X. What kind of iMac is this?

[Jazzman]

Funny there was no answer - golly , 8.5 was replace with 9.2.2 nearly ten years ago. Unless they have a very small HD, any G3 will happily run anything up to 10.4.11

[rwb]

Unless they have a very small HD, any G3 will happily run anything up to 10.4.11

Those old iMacs are happy with anything up to OS X 10.3.9. Anything later gets more tricky to install.

[Turboladdade]

Those old iMacs are happy with anything up to OS X 10.3.9. Anything later gets more tricky to install.

To clarify further, all 350 MHz iMacs will run 10.4.x just fine and are fully supported. The ones prior to 350 need some hacks to go above 10.3.x.

[dstepteau]

I have a G3 IMac with Os 8.6. I'm trying get on the internet with the internal modem, when I try to dial up or conect to earthlink all I get is a busy signal.

[Turboladdade]

You could call EarthLink and verify that you're dialing the correct numbers, but honestly this is an exercise in folly. It's time to upgrade.

[dstepteau]

What can I upgrade to? Do I have to start with os 9 or can I go to panther? when I install os 9 it ask for an air port which I don't have so I skip that part and it installed but, fail to see the internal modem.

[Turboladdade]

I meant upgrade to a newer Mac. You can find way better Macs than that for a couple hundred dollars. For example: http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/c-u68888

If you're running 8.5 then you must be on a way crazy old iMac like 1998 style. Even if/when you're successful dialing up, you're basically not going to be able to do anything with it - especially on an old dial-up modem.

BTW, Mac OS 8.6 is a free update:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60283