Well I tried resolving font conflicts by using fontbook and font explorer's options and it still does the same thing but now, coming back from the weekend, is worse. On the computer B4print is all in jumbled text like the "mail" is. Then I really goofed. I removed the system fonts and the machine gives me the "blue screen". I tried using the Tiger's desk and "Disk Warrior" and it will not boot. With the Tiger disk it just rejects, with DiskWarrier the ball spins and spins after releasing the C key. Any other ideas?

Were you able to put all the system fonts back and got it to boot?

If you haven't, you will probably need to reinstall the OS to get them back in.
Option 1. You will need to boot off the OS install disk (hold the C key down with the CD in the drive).

Option 2. If you have another Mac and a firewire cable, you can plug the Mac that won't boot into the other Mac that works. Then Power up the non-booting Mac holding down the "T" key, this will put you in Target disk Mode (there will be the radiation looking symbol on the screen of the dead Mac). This will mount the dead Mac as an external drive on the desktop of the good Mac. Then, copy the system fonts from the good Mac to the bad Mac and then see if you can get it to boot.

fingers crossed.

I would try David's option 2. It really sounds like you had a corrupt system font(s) so option 2 kills two birds with one stone.

I have to reinstall, no fireware connection on this old mac. For some reason the update disk for Tiger kept rejecting so I borrowed another Tiger disk and the same thing happened. I reinstalled panther, now the desk top appears. I'm now updating to 10.9, then I'll attempted to reinstall tiger.

It sounds like the Tiger install disk is a DVD but you only have a CD drive.

Are you sure the old Mac doesn't have firewire. I've never seen a G4 that didn't have it.

No it doesn't have it. This computer does play DVDs. It excepted the panther disks

Panther came on CD's. Tiger was released on DVD. I had the same problem on some early G4's that only had CD drives.

You don't have ports that look like these on the back of the G4?

Quote from: Joe on November 21, 2011, 12:00:09 PMYou don't have ports that look like these on the back of the G4?

If you have an external DVD drive, you can boot the OS from disk, but ONLY through a firewire connection. Had to do this once and that's how I found out. Luckily, we had one here that did the trick.

Or, like david said, you can connect two Macs via firewire and do it that way... but that's how I loaded up my G5 and I ended up having to reinstall once it got working, because none of the installs were running properly. My G5 has a firewire on the front under the USB under the power button, and I loaded it up from a G4 using that firewire.

Quote from: Joe on November 21, 2011, 12:00:09 PMYou don't have ports that look like these on the back of the G4?

I sure don't. I loaded tiger on this machine once before and we used to back up everything on DVD on this machine so something is broke most likely.

There is the "previous System Folder" on the hard drive. My hunch is it is not as simple drag and drop to replace the files just installed "Panther"???

Quote from: jimking on November 21, 2011, 12:45:34 PMThere is the "previous System Folder" on the hard drive. My hunch is it is not as simple drag and drop to replace the files just installed "Panther"???

Nope, it isn't. The "previous System Folder" is placed there when you do an archive and install. You can't set it to use it for booting or copy it over to the System Folder or you will hose the entire setup. It's not like the good old OS 9 used to be. If, while booted into Panther, can you put the Tiger DVD into the drive and have it mount on the desktop. What does the "Apple System Profiler" show for your optical drive?

Also from the "Apple System Profiler" what does it show as the Mac serial number?

Is it a blue G4 or the mirror drive door G4?