I found an iMac G5 that had been thrown in the garbage with a burnt up power supply. I bought a capacitor replacement set and replaced all of the caps that were swelled up and leaking (I think there were ten). When I put the power supply back in, it worked-for about ten minutes and then overheated and burned up. I then spent the money for a new complete power supply and replaced it. It now works fine, but the previous occupants password lock won't let me start it. I put a Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disc in the slot thinking it would overwrite that and let me in, but it just swallowed the disc and I can't eject it.
Help.

I take it its not reading the disc either. You may need to replace the drive as well.

Being years since I've used a Mac (an iMac DV with OS 9) I forgot basic shit like how to boot from the disc. Got the drive to eject but apparently there is no way to boot from the disc with a SuperDrive, so I guess I do have to buy a new disc drive, or is there something you know that makes this site useful?

Ya if it won't boot from cd by holding down option during boot. you'll probably need to replace the drive.

http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/home.php?cat=601

Isn't the SuperDrive actually working if I can't boot from it while password protected? What about using another drive, will it boot from that? Or what about removing the hard drive and wiping it since that's where the lock is and I have the OS X disc?

If its an EFI password you are talking about, that is a little trickier. The best way is to change your RAM configuration (remove a stick of RAM, add a stick, move it to the other slot, etc), then power on the machine and do a PRAM reset by holding down Apple-Option-P-R, and let it reboot itself a couple of times. Then it should clear the password.

If its an OS password, you'll need to boot up from your install cd, and reset the password using the tool inside the installer.

Must be the OS password and the original problem - SuperDrive does not boot from disk without password. Won't read disc or network to boot, just goes to password logon screen. Is there a way to wipe the hard drive?

not without booting from something else whether its a cd or external hard drive.

Replaced hard drive with a brand new one. Pressing the C key on startup gives me a little folder-looking icon with a Mac face and question mark alternately flashing in it. The N key gives a globe icon, T key gives a floating Firewire icon, and the option key gives two little boxes with arrows, one straight and one circular - clicking on them doesn't do anything. How can I load the OS 10.6.3 disc I have?

With the option key, it should list all bootable devices in between the two arrows. If it isn't listing anything, it is not finding any bootable devices. That means it is not finding a hard drive with an OS on it or a bootable CD.

Correct - Brand new hard drive out of the box. Now what?

Are you giving up on me now? It seems like the solution is right there to finally get this fucker rolling. I just need to format the drive somehow, but how?

you have to format it with a bootable cd or a bootable external hard drive with an OS on it.

Start with cmd S to enter verbose (Unix) mode. Type mount -uw / then enter, rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then enter, shutdown -h now then enter. System shuts down-start computer and everything has been reset. No problem, fast and easy. Found it on YouTube.

I'M BAAACK! BWAHAHAHA! Ok, got the password off and deleted the other user. I just want to wipe everything and start over, but now the OS X Snow Leopard disc isn't recognized. I insert the disc and the Mac OS X Install DVD window opens. Click on the install Mac OS icon on the top right and a little Install Mac OS X icon jumps up & down a few times in the dock then disappears, the disc spins and that's it. In the Preferences menu going to Startup Disc shows the Mac OS 10.3.9 on the hard drive and Network Startup but not the 10.6.3 SL disc in the drive.Holding down C during startup has no effect, either. I also put the disc in an old iMac DV I have and it recognized it no problem. So, are there some other secret Unix incantations I can enter to fix this? Did the previous ones somehow set it to not recognize the disc or something? What do you think?