Is it possible? and How to install Leopard into old G4 with Tiger
Hi Everyone!
This topic is actually continued from an older one: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 with Tiger Discussion Continues https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7126334http://
The discussion changed over the days to become one of: If it is possible to install Leopard into an old G4 ?
Here are the copies of the discussions at the end of that topic above.
I hope its ok with Apple Community to copy them over here.
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Limnos Jul 14, 2015 9:04 PM
Re: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 & Tiger--Discussion Continues in response to Mac_HelpYour statement about OSX 10.5 requiring Intel is incorrect. Some G4s can run Leopard with no problem.
You need to look at all links in the system and you also need to ask what is required. Newer enclosures support >2.2 GB drives. I bet the one you have will support it. I have not used a 4TB drive with this computer so I only have the information from the chat session I had. A formatted 4TB drive will work with my G4 with Tiger OS (in essence no different to yours). However, many drives do not come formatted for Macs and the person with whom I chatted was uncertain Tiger OS has the capability to format large drives, though once they were formatted they would work with Tiger. In my case if I bought a newer docking station and I used (for example) my wife's 1 year old MacBook Pro to format the drive (which likely comes formatted for Windows) to Mac HFS, I could then take the new dock and drive back to my G4 and go ahead and use it.
I provided the above information about the Voyager because that is what I use and am interested in buying but is has information that is 90% relevant to your situation too. You do not need an old model. You do not want an old model unless you plan on using a drive less than 2.2 TB. The only real reason for wanting an older Voyager would be if it supports Firewire booting of a computer (required for G4) and for all I know your enclosure might (you have to ask OWC).
Drive reviews are tricky, By the time a drive has been around long enough to get decent reliability estimates it is usually no longer sold. I don't really know anything about the Toshiba drives. My feeling is that if they are being put in as the standard drive when buying a package it is because they are the cheapest and they have to be cheap for a reason, but no data. Look at drive reviews (Newegg is a good place because there are hundreds of reviews for each drive). Many of the bad scores are for dead-on-arrival drives. There's a bit of data on early failure drives which is handy but just about every single drive out there has some of that. There's occasionally a bit of information about heating and noise levels (handy if your drives are going to run 27/7 on your desk but less critical if it is for a quick backup then turn off).
I'm actually surprised the 4TB HGST drives are rating reasonably highly. Hitachi had some pretty poor ratings about a year ago and although nobody has glowing ratings for any drives the Western Digital ones seemed not too bad as long as you went for something in the "blue" line or higher.
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BDAqua Level 10Level 10 (120,540 points)
BDAqua Jul 14, 2015 9:12 PM
Re: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 & Tiger--Discussion Continues in response to Mac_HelpAnd of course my G4 is Apple chip---will not take the Leopard 10.5 as that needs an Intel chip
Nope, G4s & G5 PPC Macs can run 10.5..8 Leopard, but 10.6.0 Snow Leopard & above requires IntelMac...
Gray 10.5 Install Discs would be not only machine specific, but Intel ONLY.
Leopard requirements/10.5.x...
* Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor
minimum system requirements
* 512MB of memory (I say 1.5GB for PPC at least, 2-3GB minimum for IntelMacs)
* DVD drive for installation
* 9GB of available disk space (I say 30GB at least)
Classic/OS9 Apps no longer supported.
Trouble is Apple no longer sells it, check eBay & such for the Retail version, not the Gray Discs...
http://http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=mac+os+x+leopard+retail+10.5
There are workarounds if the 867MHz CPU is the only hangup...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/leopardassist/
http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html
List of Applications Not Compatible with Leopard...
http://guides.macrumors.com/List:Applications_Not_Compatible_with_Leopard
As far as google translate, go here & put the URL in intend of text...
As far as drives, I'd opt for this one...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD2003FZEX/
But actually 10.4.11 & up can handle any size drive if GUID Partitition scheme instead of APM, but will not be bootable, just useable for data R/W.
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Limnos Level 8Level 8 (43,430 points)
Limnos Jul 14, 2015 9:20 PM
Re: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 & Tiger--Discussion Continues in response to BDAquaThose "black" (better than blue) Western Digital drives are supposed to be pretty good but it's a tough call when for $20 more you could get one of those 4TB HGST...
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BDAqua Level 10Level 10 (120,540 points)
BDAqua Jul 14, 2015 9:36 PM
Re: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 & Tiger--Discussion Continues in response to BDAquaThis helped me 0 members found this helpful (0)
BDAqua Level 10Level 10 (120,540 points)
BDAqua Jul 14, 2015 9:38 PM
Re: Adding External Hard Drives to Mac G4 & Tiger--Discussion Continues in response to LimnosBeen very happy with my Blacks, never tried a Blue, won't try a Green, & no idea what a Red is!
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Hi Everyone!
Thank you for all your research and writing to me!
I did some of my own...
I tried to number things so everyone can refer to a "Q" "Question" number or so...
Q1: This Apple Community Forum Article says my exact Mac can run Leopard!
JUST DISABLE THE Three D and transparent Dock and a few other things and its OK runs fast or faster than Tiger!!
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Q2: But I also researched the fact of why I was informed (misinformed??) by those who should know these things... that I should "never" attempt to put Leopard into my particular G4 Power Book....
Q3: I found out this gem of information that I remembered from before when I had to get TenFourFox to replace "Firefox" as it no longer functioned with Tiger so I was off the internet until I got a replacement. (Safari 4 was refused access at many sites that I try to visit and or need to access/visit)
TenFourFox comes in different tuned versions for specific PowerPC processor families:
TenFourFox G5
TenFourFox G4 - build 7450
TenFourFox G4 - build 7400 (also for 7410)
TenFourFox G3more...
G5 has one "processor family!"
G 3 has another one
G4 HAS TWO! types of "builds" for its system
and that is ALL THE DIFFERNCE
Why Leopard DOES not work for G3 and ONE of the two builds for G4
and why Leopard DOES work for other one of G4 build and G5 and higher
This is what I was told
and here is the proof I was looking for in print
it is for the Ten Four Fox Browser but I'm looking for more proof in other apple sections of help or problem solving sections etc. why it does not take Leopard
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Link to Page: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37761/tenfourfox
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Q3:
IN REPLY TO BDAqua about not using the "Grey" disk to install Leopard, I found this helpful piece of information:
This article in Apple Communities 2012 LINK;;;;; https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3940381
says you need Black faced full retail version of Leopard!
You'll need to use a black-faced retail version of 10.5 Leopard. Since this is a new installation on a blank hard drive, don't use the black-faced upgrade disk, as it requires OS X 10.4 to be installed to work. If you have a bootable backup, and an upgrade 10.5 disk, you could copy that using SuperDuper! or CCC to your new hard drive then use the upgrade disk.
Trouble is Apple no longer sells it, check eBay & such for the Retail version, not the Gray Discs..
Apple Community Discussion Thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3940381
actually gives the model numbers of the Black Retail disk for me to search for if and when I go to attempt to do this process.....
For now.... I still ask and write back to everyone with even more questions!!
For example: How to actually do the Leopard Installation of OSX.. step by step: This shows it
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/48242/How+can+I+install+mac+os+x+10.5
Shows and demonstrates it on a You Tube Video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chaLssk-Jno
Q4: Wwaaaaittt a minute!
This is not like upgrading from Panther to Tiger which I did "myself" in 2011.
I lost "nothing"
I erased "nothing"
I formatted "nothing"
and I got upgraded to "Tiger"
(Similar to upgrading "Windows" I've done that too by myself).
Q5: The instructions for Leopard, as seen in this You Tube video, seem to state I must totally erase and reformat the HDD of the PowerBook to put in Leopard (I have backup of course) but putting it back in I might lose (LOSE!) all programs that needed current passwords or product keys to initialize the program to work on a "new" operating system like Leopard!
Q6: I may lose all my mail contacts and mail servers (which is what happened to the relative) as I have OLD OLD servers from 2004 and the company who is still charging me for Email keeps telling me to "migrate" it all to a "newer" computer---not a Leopard but Mavericks or Mountain Lion at least! They can't help me with older migrations as they cancelled that out years ago...
So all my Email may be lost and no one will be able to write to me or me to them if I lose my Email addresses and client servers and who knows what else has to be manually installed and of course I have no "disks" for this as it was all done "on line" without any backup programs!
Q6: Who knows how many other programs I have that were downloaded from places "online" and who will no longer support Leopard!
I can tell you ONE program I researched as far as I can go on my G4 Tiger---it is the Mac version of Microsoft Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Entourage etc). I got the "product key" as a student which means the "college" installed it for me using their Product Key for everyone... I do NOT own the product key. If I "erase" the HDD, I will lose the program as it will not reinstall itself without a "current" product key i.e. read that to say I have to pay for one---and at "Leopard" standard it might be old and cost a lot---as I'm really using one from "Panther" installation that was maintained through the Tiger upgrade!
THUS I'm sorry to say, this is how I'll end up with a Leopard Computer and nothing to do on it! Nothing but Apple stuff like Time Machine or Text Edit but if I did not save on those but used third party programs like Office, I'm out of luck retrieving to view or edit or print out old items and forget about making new items at all... This is NOT a good reason to switch to Leopard if it means losing all that (and potentially my Email client as well!)
Q7: I thought it was just an "upgrade" from Tiger to Leopard! IT seems like this is a whole new functioning system.... maybe due to its ability to work with Intel?
Q8: I have no help here for someone to physically step by step help me along to do this right..... I certainly can't ask Apple Store Genius bar to help me.... its too late for that!!
And by the way---they told me it was impossible to do this with my old Mac so I could buy a new printer----they of course, recommended I buy a whole brand new Mac!!
Q9: But I'm running out of time. My old HP 8500 Wireless printer is only one left alive that works with "Tiger" as the refurbished ones have new software---I can't get mine repaired as they will put in the new software HP tells me---and [you guessed it!] the "new" software of the printer only runs under Leopard 10.5 not Tiger, so that means I cannot print at all once I fix the HP printer (or buy any of their new off the shelf ones---all say they needs 10.5 (actually a LOT now say its 10.6 minimum! I'd better hurry up! and make some decision soon here!)
Q10: Also don't forget the start of this discussion was the fact I'm soon to be running out of External Hard Drive space on the G-Drive units. The last of them that run on Tiger.
Then I'm forced to buy either Seagate and its high Failure rate..
Or buy and put in an enclosure a Toshiba that I cannot get ratings on yet... (and as someone above very astutely pointed out to me... by the time the drive gets "ratings" its usually no longer sold!)... so leaving me without a back up storage drive or storage of my photos into the future....
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End of Questions: (whew!)
Sorry for so many inaccurate pieces of information here.. I try to look everything up before sending this posting this... but there is only so much one guy can do to make it 100 % perfect information for others...
Thanks again for reading a very very long posting (including the other postings from the other Discussion question as well.
PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Apple Chip not Intel chip