Wont Boot Tiger Install CD

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Wont Boot Tiger Install CD

I have been given a Power Mac G4 currently running OS9.2.2 in german. I have a set of english Tiger 10.4 CD's that I want to upgrade to, But it will not allow me to set the CD as the startup disc. Booting the computer with the CD in the drive just loads os9 in the normal way. I can get into the open firmware command prompt, Can i set it to boot from the cd from here?

Specs: G4 gigabit ethernet model
400Mhz, 512MB ram 20GB hdd

Thanks,

Picky

Power Mac G4, Mac OS 9.2.x, gigabit ethernet model

Posted on Mar 6, 2009 10:53 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

428,201 points

Mar 6, 2009 11:27 AM in response to Picky88

Are these black colored retail version CDs that will install on any Mac capable of running Tiger, or are they gray colored CDs that originally came with another machine and will only boot the machine model with which they were provided?

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Answer 2

Picky88 Author

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Mar 6, 2009 11:36 AM in response to Limnos

they are the retail CD's. Ive just typed boot cd:,\\tbxi into the open firmware and i get this error: Open of DISK LABEL failed can't OPEN cd;

Do I have a scratched disc?

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Answer 3

Mar 6, 2009 12:40 PM in response to Picky88

First you need to check if your Mac requires a firmware (Boot ROM version in System Profiler) update. Mac OS X: Available firmware updates
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117 If an update is required, the update must be installed (using OS 9) BEFORE you install OS X.

There are two usual ways to boot from the CD. You can depress the c key at startup. I assume this is what you are doing. The second is to depress the Option key at startup, which will activate the startup manager. In the startup manager there should appear your OS 9 hard drive icon & the Tiger installer icon (if it's bootable). Select the Tiger installer & click on the right arrow.

How many CD do you have? CD installers have 4 CDs. Normally the Tiger installer came on a DVD & you need a DVD reader disc drive to read.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 4

Mar 6, 2009 5:46 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

The third way to boot to the Installer on CD or DVD also does a check on whether the drive can read the disc. These discs are "regular" Mac discs, and can be inserted in the drive and examined with the Finder (any version system 7 or later that supports CD extension).

When the CD mounts on the desktop, open it and find the Icon labeled "Install Mac OS X" and open it, then follow the directions.

Are you sure that disc is a CD, not a DVD? Tiger on CDs is five discs.

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Answer 5

Picky88 Author

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Mar 7, 2009 4:45 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

There are 4 tiger discs, I have been trying to boot from disc 1. I have tried the firmware update, and it says my machine does not need updating. My ROM version is shown as 4.2.8f1 though, what does the extra f1 on the end mean?

also the error I got in open firmware "Open of DISK LABEL failed can't OPEN cd;" Does this show a problem with the CD or the drive?

When I open the CD in OS9 a tiger install screen appears with a restart button. clicking the restart button generates an error:

Cannot set the CD drive as the startup Disc(-2)

When I try to set the CD as the startup disc in settings, the CD is displayed there, but is greyed out and cannot be selected.

What am I missing here? I noticed that the firmware updates were language specific, I downloaded the german firmware update. The tiger CDs are english.

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Answer 6

Picky88 Author

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Mar 13, 2009 5:32 PM in response to Picky88

Solved: put a CD lense cleaner in the drive and it now boots from the CD just fine.

Picky

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