After 3 tries, I gave up. Called apple and exchanged my copy of panther for jag. And it installed with no problems.
And the problem was, it wasnt installing completely.
After it had finished installing CD1, it should resatrt, then ask for cd 2, but it never got that far, it would restart, and then show me the grey screen.
Maybe a defective copy of panther? Who knows, but im loving osx all the same
a weeks worth of pain was plenty worth it!
simply put
osx > *