I've been trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger but keep nothing happens. I keep getting a grey folder with a question mark on it. Can anyone tell me what this means?
iMac 17" Flat Panel, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 160 GB, 1.83 GHZ Intel Core Duo, 512 MB DDR2
Is the External Drive USB or Firewire? Only Firewire will be bootable on PPC Macs.
Question mark means it can find the drive it thinks it's suppossed to boot from.
It's a USB dvd drive connected to my Intel iMac, it's not a PPC. I use it cause my iMacs dvd drive spits out any disc I insert.
OK, if you hold the Option/alt key down at bootup, does the external drive with the Install Disc in it show as a boot choice?
Is it a Gray Machine Specific Disc from another Mac perhaps?
It's a retail copy. It does not show up when I hold down the option/alt button, but does show up in the system prefs when I go to the start-up disc panel.
Using the Option/alt method try clicking thr 3/4 circle on the left to have it rescan, does it show then?
Is this perchance a bus powered external?
It's not bus powered and I don't know what you mean by "Using the Option/alt method try clicking thr 3/4 circle on the left to have it rescan, does it show then?"
When holding the Option/alt key at bootup you'd normally see on older Macs a 3/4 circle, bottable drives between, then right arrow on the right, but newer Macs show this...
Has it ever booted from this optical? Some do not support it.
It only shows my Machintosh HD when I do that, it doesn't show any of my ext. drives cause I've disconnected them. Guess it may not support it then.
Another question or two, cause it seems that my options are dwindling can I use my old iMac's disc drive to install the SL?
The option of a new internal disc drive is looking costly, I've heard places charge up to $400 to replace it.
Can I install if I make a bootable copy to my firewire external?
If you have another Mac with Firewire, you can use it's Optical Drive as a big Firewire Optical, put the Install disc in the other Mac, boot the other Mac in to
Target mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Connect a fw cable, use the Otion key on this one to choose the Install Disc in the other Mac.
Can I install if I make a bootable copy to my firewire external?
Yes, especially if you have a small 5 to 9GB Partition, you can use DU to Restore the Install Disc to that. 🙂
The install disc is not showing up, just the HD and partions.
Try unplugging the FW cable, wait a minute & plug it back in.
I've tried that as well and it only shows the Macintosh HD and the partitions.
Wait, is this that external CD/DVD reader, or the Internal onr in the good Mac that you have the Install Disc in?
It's in the internal of my old iMac. I've stopped trying on the External DVD burner. Now I'm trying to put it in the internal of my iMac Intel in hopes that it stops spitting it out and takes it in.
Hmmmm, and the iMac Intel is the one in Target mode?
Can I upgrade from Tiger to snow leopard using an external DVD drive
