Installing OSX from an identical G4 tower

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Level 1

4 points

Installing OSX from an identical G4 tower

Hi all

I don't have the original OSX cd for my G4 tower and it starts up with dreadful ??? mark on the gray screen. My older brother has the same G4 tower and I was just curious if I can use his installer OSX cds to boot up. Thanks

web dude

G4 tower AGP, 500mhz, gig ethernet, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Mar 1, 2007 4:51 PM

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Answer 1

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Texas Mac Man

Level 8

46,839 points

Mar 1, 2007 5:24 PM in response to Web dude

Possibly, but it's not legal to do a system install on more than one Mac.

Did your G4 initially have OS 9 or OS X installed?

 Cheers, Tom

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Answer 2

Mar 1, 2007 5:45 PM in response to Web dude

Here's Apple doc.#58042 on flashing ? mark. You should be fine if you use his disk for repairs.

Cheers!
DALE

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Answer 3

Web dude Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 1, 2007 8:02 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

No,

My G4 currently doesn't have OS 9 or OSX. It was given to me without it. I have a reformatted 15g hard drive without any OS.

Thanks
Web dude

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Answer 4

Mar 3, 2007 2:48 PM in response to Web dude

Web dude,

If you don't know if OS X was previously installed on this AGP Graphics Mac, then before attempting to install OS X, be certain that the Mac's firmware is version 4.2.8. If it isn't, then download it and upgrade it using an installed version of OS 9.x. You can easily determine the firmware version by booting to open firmware (cmd option+of at startup) and reading it from the top line of the command line screen. Afterwards, simply power down with the power button to exit, since that there's no operating system on the Mac.

Gary

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