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How to install OS X on a PPC G4 without an optical drive or another PPC?

Hi.

As stated, I have a iMac PPC G4 I'd like to install OS on. I don't particularly care what version...but I have the original 10.1.2 discs.

Problems: the optical drive is finnicky (sometimes worked in the past), the HD has been completely erased, so I can't boot from it now, and I don't have another PPC.

I can boot from a 10.4 install disc using my Macbook 5,2 in target disk mode via firewire, but it's unable to complete installation from there. I can't boot at all from any of the 10.1 discs via firewire.

Can I...

-Force the optical drive to open while booted from the 10.4 disc, so I can try giving it some install discs that I hadn't tried in that drive before?

The regular eject (F12 on my keyboard) button doesn't open the drive. When I run drutil in the terminal while booted from the install disc, it doesn't find any optical drives.

-Install from an iPod with a USB connection, a la: http://guides.macrumors.com/Installing_Mac_OS_X_10.4_without_DVD ?

-Install from an 8 GB USB drive, as Kappy described here (but didn't work for that user): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3827056?start=0&tstart=0 ?

-In any way install using my Macbook in TDM?

-Start the iMac in TDM and install to it from the Macbook?

Thanks a bunch!

MacBook (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.5.8), Time Capsule 802.11n (1st Gen)

Posted on Aug 4, 2012 5:32 PM

Top-ranking reply

Kenichi Watanabe

Level 8

41,578 points

Posted on Aug 4, 2012 7:15 PM

You can't use a 10.4 installation disc that came with an Intel Mac on a PowerPC Mac.

You can boot from USB on PowerPC Mac, whether it's an iPod, flash drive, or exernal drive that is connected.

You can't use an Intel Mac to install a Tiger system that will be used by a PowerPC Mac. It may work with Leopard, but not with Tiger.

But, you may be able to do the following. Start up the MacBook in FireWire Target Disk Mode (it should be connected to a power adapter instead running off its battery). Insert the 10.1.2 installation disc into the MacBook's optical drive.

Using a FireWire cable, connect the MacBook to the iMac G4, while it is powered off. Start up the iMac G4 and hold down the Option key before you hear the startup sound. This should bring up Startup Manager, where you can select to start up from available startup disks. IF (big "if") the MacBook's optical drive is available to the iMac G4 over FireWire Target Disk Mode, you will see the 10.1.2 installation disc as a choice. Select it and try to start up from it.

NOTE: Depending on the Mac model, the opitical drive may or may not be available to the "host" Mac over FireWire Target Disk Mode.

FYI - 10.1.2 is kind of a waste of time. There is very little software that is compatible with it.

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23 replies

Aug 5, 2012 4:24 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Updates...

OS 9 is installed, so both OS's are now bootable on the machine.

and even some applications that are currently being maintained, such as

http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/

This is great. I really like it.

As a better "test" for that Mac, you may want to try installing Mac OS 9. With Mac OS 9, there is a lot more old useful software, because Mac OS 9 was the latest and greatest Mac OS release for a LONG time. You can give it a better "workout," and it will feel more "snappy." There is free third-party general hardware tester

http://www.micromat.com/downloads/techtool-lite-3-0-4

I got this app, but the only real tests I see are for floppy disks and PRAM. Do you know of any OS 9 apps that test RAM?

Or perhaps I should go ahead and upgrade the OS X now, and run memtest from there.

Aug 5, 2012 4:50 PM in response to andbeonetraveler

Oh, it doesn't do a RAM test? I thought it did... I guess only the full version does that test.

Just doing some searching... maybe these

http://www.mactcp.org.nz/dimmfirstaid.html

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/4512/newer-gauge-pro

Also, this web site has some links to good software that is freeware. The web site is actually focused on the even older "System 7," but a lot of it is relevant for Mac OS 9.

http://main.system7today.com/index.html

(In particular, WordPerfect 3.5 and Corel Graphics 8...)

Using some larger apps (including Classilla) that use more RAM is sort of a "real world" test of the RAM.

rccharles

Level 6

12,969 points

Aug 5, 2012 6:35 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

The web has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Old web browser do not hack it. You can forget IE. It will get you the google search page & that's abut it. You need 10.4 in the Mac OS X world for a decent web browser. You could look at iCab. It was about the best at support old OS X releases.

Some memory that worked for classic didn't work for Mac OS X. Perhaps this is what apple was saying.

I recommend OWC for memory.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/G4_700MHz_800MHz

As you know, You need an external Firewire drive to boot a PowerPC Mac computer.

I recommend you do a google search on any external harddrive you are looking at.

I bought a low cost external drive enclosure. When I started having trouble with it, I did a google search and found a lot of complaints about the drive enclosure. I ended up buying a new drive enclosure. On my second go around, I decided to buy a drive enclosure with a good history of working with Macs. The chip set seems to be the key ingredient. The Oxford line of chips seems to be good. I got the Oxford 911.

Has everything interface:

FireWire 800/400 + USB2, + eSATA 'Quad Interface'

save a little money interface:

FireWire 400 + USB 2.0

This web page lists both external harddrive types. You may need to scroll to the right to see both.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

Aug 5, 2012 7:40 PM in response to rccharles

Just doing some searching... maybe these

http://www.mactcp.org.nz/dimmfirstaid.html

Doesn't work on our model, I guess.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/4512/newer-gauge-pro

This was nice, ran it in OS 9.2.2 and got these results (please let me know if anything is noteworthy):

So then I upgraded to 10.2 and am currently running a memtest. No kernel panic yet, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you guys know any good tricks for testing the HD, Airport card, and logic board?

Some memory that worked for classic didn't work for Mac OS X. Perhaps this is what apple was saying.

Hmm. The internal (inaccessible) RAM is PC100...but if all the tests check out and OS X is running, it shouldn't need replacement, right? I'm thinking we'll upgrade the user-accessible one regardless just for better performance...it's only $22 at OWC anyway.

This web page lists both external harddrive types. You may need to scroll to the right to see both.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

Had no idea these guys made externals! I was going to get a WD at Best Buy. Would be nice to have FW800 though, which seems a bit pricey here.

Aug 5, 2012 9:29 PM in response to andbeonetraveler

Just be sure NOT to get a USB 2.0 (only) external drive. Your iMac only has USB 1.1. FireWire 800 should work with your iMac's FireWire 400 ports (at FireWire 400 speed), if you get a cable with the right connectors, like this

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/1394B96036/

I like WD hard drive mechanisms (the actual hard drive inside), but I'm not that fond of WD external hard drives. They seem cheap and "plasticy," and I hear about reliability issues quite often.

Seems like your RAM is OK.

Aug 12, 2012 10:45 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Update!

RAM seems good to go.

In case you're interested, I was being cautious when running the memtest and worried about having the wrong OS version, overloading memtest, causing another kernel panic, etc., so I used three different commands, in this order:

./memtest 256 -l

./memtest 400 -l

./memtest all 3 -l

Which all passed. The last 3 tests (last line above) tested 447 MB, which was all that was available.

So then I went to OS X 10.3. Safari was working fine at first. Then I installed the OS 10.3.9 Combo Update, which made Safari crash at the main google search page. In retrospect, I maybe should have installed the 2005-2 security update first, based on this article. But it wouldn't let me re-apply it after installing the combo update, so I downloaded Firefox 2.0.0.20 - as far as I can tell, the newest version of firefox to run on 10.3. It works amazingly well! Hotmail, Gmail, Google calendar, and Facebook are all accessible in their current format, with just a few glitches in the display. No Youtube videos though. I did notice that having two or more tabs of those kinds of sites eats up all the available memory.

I ordered this RAM from OWC and it came in less than half the time anticipated. The online tech support people were also very helpful (I wanted to make sure that I need the 2" module, not the "low profile" one).

I've never installed RAM before, but there is an Apple support article here and some Youtube videos. Current plan is to test the RAM again after installing it, then go to OS X 10.4.

Externals: I'm leaning towards this one from OWC (and I'm assuming "USB 3.0/2.0/1.1" means it will play nice with the iMac). I looked at a couple of well-reviewed models from Seagate and WD, but I've been doing some googling and still can't figure out what kind of chipset they have. I suppose I could get just the enclosure from OWC and the drive somewhere else...but I can't tell if that would actually save me money. And I've never put one together before. I don't need more than 500 GB, nor fancy backup software since I do my automatic backups on a Time Capsule. It doesn't have to be portable...but it would be nice.

Aug 13, 2012 12:38 AM in response to andbeonetraveler

Sounds like good news...

For a web browser that works with Panther 10.3.9, also give Camino 1.6.9. a try

http://caminobrowser.org/releases/1.6.9/

It's not the latest release, but it is fairly recent. That version of Safari for Panther is REALLY old; that's probably why it crashes with Google's pages, not because of how a security update was installed.

YouTube is not going to work very well, not matter what, because a 700 MHz G4 processor is too slow for the higher resolution videos we watch these days.

For the external drive, it needs to be FireWire with that iMac. USB 1.1 is SLOW. Not just a little slow, VERY slow. It would work, but it would be "inconvenient." That's why the first three generations of iPod used FireWire instead of USB, because USB was mostly 1.1 back then, and only suitable for connecting things like keyboards, mice, and printers (where speed was not essential).

This one seems to be on sale right now

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEFW934FWU2K/

It's less expensive because it's their older model with FireWire 400 instead of 800, which actually fits your iMac's FireWire 400. And it's for 3.5-inch hard drives (the current SATA type), which is less expensive per GB compared to 2.5-inch laptop hard drives. It also has its own power supply (instead of drawing power from the port like a 2.5-inch external drive), and that may be important for the aging power supply in your iMac (less stress on it is better).

You can look at Newegg.com for hard drive deals.

Mar 22, 2014 4:37 PM in response to andbeonetraveler

This is an old thread, but I really should have marked it as solved for posterity.

Basically in the situation described in the title, the options are:

1) Startup from an install disc in an external optical drive connected via Firewire.

2) Startup from an install disc in another PowerPC in Target Disc Mode. This will not work if the target computer is an Intel Mac.

How to install OS X on a PPC G4 without an optical drive or another PPC?