Cheers gang.
I recently acquired a G4 Mac Mini but trying to get it to cooperate is proving a headache.

When I got the system, it was able to boot into OS X just fine and I could get the open firmware boot menu by holding down keys on the keyboard.

However, when I shut the system down and went to prepare a USB stick with the MorphOS installer on it, it seems something happened.

Now the system will not boot to OS X or to the open firmware screen.
I hear the "chime" when I turn it on, but regardless of whether I just let it sit or try to hold down the keys for open firmware, the screen just goes black, as if nothing was plugged in.

Any suggestions for things to try?

As the "chime" is on then most probably the critical hardware is unharmed. Maybe it's the hard drive? But then you'd see a gray screen with quotation mark. Strange indeed. I'd try booting from a CD (while holding a C button on a keyboard), trying to evoke the boot menu (by holding Alt key on a keyboard) or resetting the PRAM:
1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Turn on the computer.
3. Press and hold the Command(⌘)-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears. (or Windows-Alt-P-R keys on a PC keyboard)
4. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
5. Release the keys.

If noting else works, try connecting the monitor via VGA. The mini has "issues" with its DVI head and might have simply reconfigured itself (via Mac OS) to a resolution it cannot display. That said, NVRam wipe (cmd-opt-p-r as mentioned in above post) might fix that.

[ Edited by jacadcaps 13.08.2019 - 07:57 ]

Doing the Cmd-opt-p-r got things sorted out it seems. Thanks!
It now boots into OSX no fuss and I can access the open firmware.

My next problem: When I boot from USB to install MOS, after it posts DO-QUIESCE Finished and presumably starts loading the disc image, it goes to a black screen showing "no signal".

I am connected through a DVI to HDMI adapter and the monitor should be able to display just about anything I throw at it (my Amiga 1200 is connected to it without any scan doubler and displays just fine).

Any ideas?
I do have a VGA input on the monitor, but I don't currently have a DVI-to-VGA adapter I can try with.

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If your monitor's native resolution if something high (like FullHD), then MorphOS probably tries to set that kind of screenmode (it gets monitor's specs via DDC). In my experience earlier Mac minis aren't that good with FullHD resolution and you are likely to have hard time trying it. For example, my Mac mini 1.5GHz/64MB vram is fine with FullHD equipments I've tried, but my Mac mini 1.42GHz/32MB vram fails always with the same setups, at least if tried via DVI/HDMI.

BTW. do you see the MorphOS butterfly image at all when trying to boot? It stays very short time...

You could also try to boot to the MorphOS bootmenu, and then select some lower resolution option to boot. Add bm as the last argument to your usb boot line in OF to get into it easiest way.

I tried on a different monitor and I did see the butterfly logo and get into the beginning of the installer, before the screen starting going "static" and then losing signal.

I'll give the boot menu a shot!

You're not the first person to have problems with DVI to HDMI adapters it seems.

Something very weird going on in regard to timings.

Well, the boot menu didn't work, but what did help was connecting the mac mini to our TV.
Boom. Picture with no problems

Now everything is installed and fine, though I can't get it to find a resolution that will work on the computer monitor, so I think I am giving up on the adapter and getting a VGA one. Hopefully that'll do the trick!

Holding CTRL when booting forces 1024x768, then you can try to set a custom resolution, probably will not be easy with a fussy Radeon 9200 in Mac mini.

I had a similar issue with a licensed Mac mini I purchased. No matter what I did I couldn't get anything on my monitor. I ended up booting off of CD and reinstalling from scratch. After that it has not had any display issues.

Likewise, I've ust purchased a Mac Mini (1.42GHz) and had quite a chore to install MorphOS 3.11.

I've even managed to mess up OS X to find that my install DVD is corrupted.

For some reason, even though I had partitioned and correctly formatted the HD following instructions I had downloaded for dual booting, I just couldn't get MOS to install.

Eventually, I gave up and let the automatic install routine do its stuff.

I don't really miss OS X that much anyway, so now I have a lovely new MOS 3.11 install working perfectly.

Next job is to convince her indoors that I absolutely do need to shell out the registration fee!

Well, once the adapter got here, it worked flawlessly on my monitor.

Then my mouse ran out of battery but hey, at least we're getting somewhere :)

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

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You can download a legal copy of Mac OSX Tiger 10.4.6 from here and a copy of Mac OSX Leopard from here - Internet Archive.org

*Note* You'll need to download the Tiger and Leopard .iso files to another OS - as MorphOS cannot handle the 4.4GB or 7.5GB sized files, sadly.