[G4] OSX 10.2 on G4 fiasco

[chip puller]

I own a G4 466 mhz with a 40 gig hd,250 meg iomega and 768 meg of ram. 
Somehow my permissions for the HD went on the fritz and I could not add 
anything to the HD but could copy stuff off. I added a new user called admin 
and gave that user all permissions but nothing helped fix the problem. I 
decided to reinstall OS 10.2 and had  problems so I tried another HD witn 
zero results. I got OS 10.3 on a DVD and that allowed me to reformat the 1st 
drive and do a clean install of 10.3.3 on the G-4. Then I tried installing 
the OS9 classic mode and everything went in the crapper. It thought I had 
OS9.2 on the HD and would not allow me to install. I copied the 9.2 folder 
over to the HD and then it allowed the OS9.2 to do its thing. After much ado 
I got the 1st drive completed. The 2nd drive would not let OS 10.3 to 
install until I finally rezeroed the drive using the utilities. then OSX 
10.3 installed and the classic mode OS9.2 runs like it is supposed to. Do 
the rest of this group have the same problems or in my 466 Mhz computer a 
Jonah.
  Having 99% of the system files hidden makes a lot of wasted space on my 40 
gig HD. Of 3.8 gig of the files on the DVD only 198 meg of them are visible 
to the user. the kernal written in Forth makes it hard to make changes or 
tweak things. but That must be why Mac's are the best computers on the 
market ( turns opened hand towards Apple for my tip)