Changing from Panther to Tiger?

[macclassic]

My nephew just bought an iPod Touch and discovered that he needs OS X 10.4.7 on his iBook for the iPod to communicate with it.

The iBook is currently running OS X 10.3.9 so he popped an OS X 10.4.x install disk in it but this refused to install with some sort of message about the machine not being suitable!

Took the edge off playing with his new iPod a bit as he had to borrow another iBook to do the setup.

So just what are the requirements for Tiger?

 

[coius]

what are the iBook specs?

 

[dbraverman88]

The main ingredient for Tigor to install properly is that the mac must have firewire.

 

[madmax_2069]

or use xpostfacto to make the installer install tiger on it

 

[The Macster]

Yes, it sounds like it's one of the very first iBooks that didn't have FireWire, so you will need to use XPF and it should work fine. Presumably the Leopard-type hack of the install disc to remove the blocked machine ID would also work as Tiger must have drivers for those iBooks (unlike the older Macs that were removed completely), but XPF seems to be the conventional way to do this.

 

[Cory5412]

To expound on the explanation of the requirements:

PowerPC G3 or G4 processor inside a computer with a legitimate Apple logo, with USB and firewire onboard.

256mb is the minimum amount of memory recommended, I think Applemight have listed 128 on their website, and as with anything, the more you can give it, the happier you'll be.

At bare minimum, you need a 5 gig hard disc, I wouldn't install it on any less than a 6 gig and there are people who will tell you you won't be happy with any less than a twenty gig, especially if you'll be mirroring the entire contents of an iPod Touch.

 

[madmax_2069]

heck i am not really happy with the 120gb HDD that i have ( granted it holds more ) but you can fill one real fast, and its like not having enough. its allot better then a smaller size but in this day allot more storage is better.

tiger will run on 128mb ram, but is not recommended to do, tiger can choke real easy on a system with only 128mb ram ( allot of disk swapping action).

like Cory said the more you give tiger the happier it will be and allot less frustrated you will be with it.

 

[macclassic]

The G4 iBook does have firewire but it's a bit low on ram.

I must say I've never seen an install programme with as few options as the 10.4 disk.

I will try the XPostFacto route.

Thanks

 

[MacMan]

Another option is to install it from another machine using Firewire target disk mode. Basically link the two machines with a firewire cable and boot the iBook (the "destination" machine) into target disk mode by holding the "T" key down during startup until the firewire icon starts dancing around the screen. The drive of the iBook will appear as a hard drive on the other machine. Start the Tiger installer disk on the other machine and select the iBook's hard drive as the install destination disk. It will install Tiger onto the iBook and then, bizarrely, restart with the new Tiger system on the iBook's drive over firewire. Switch off and disconnect the machines from each other and you should have a happy, Tiger-running iBook.

This is a good way to install from system-specific Mac OS installer disks and also for installing certain OS X versions on unsupported machines. And yes, this method does work with Leopard installers too!

 

[~tl]

10.4 should install without any hacks on a G4 iBook, so I'm guessing the machine doesn't have enough RAM. I'd recommend at least 512MB for 10.4, or 1GB+ if you can possibly manage it.

Either it's that, or you've got a machine specific OS X disk... if that's the case then the method MacMan suggested should work.

 

[madmax_2069]

10.4 should install without any hacks on a G4 iBook, so I'm guessing the machine doesn't have enough RAM. I'd recommend at least 512MB for 10.4, or 1GB+ if you can possibly manage it.
Either it's that, or you've got a machine specific OS X disk... if that's the case then the method MacMan suggested should work.

DOH, where is my mind today ( in the trash apparently ), i should have realized that a G4 iBook was supported in tiger, maybe something is up with the optical drive, or Ram that could be the reason of tiger not installing on it.

oh BTW does a G4 iBook have any available firmware updates

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

it list's a few iBooks as having firmware updates available, but i dont know if your model is one of the ones shown to have a firmware update for.

i have seen OS X incompatibilities on a supported machine that is running a older firmware and even unsupported machines, and updating the firmware fixed the issue.

one of the issues was using a modded version of the Leopard installer disk to install on unsupported machine ( a dual 500mhz G4 Power Mac). he didn't realize that it was running a old version of the firmware and Leopard would Kernel panic as soon as it would start to load. he finally found out and updated the firmware and it installed without a hitch.

but if your iBook dont have a firmware download to update to, then there is some other issue at hand.

like Tom said you should not have to use xpostfacto to install Tiger on that cause it should be a Tiger supported machine, or you have a machine specific OS X install CD/DVD and that can cause problems booting the installer or just failing to run at all. i would check to see if you need to update your firmware and then if it fails, go the xpostfacto 4 route.

 

[macclassic]

This is the spec of my nephew's iBook:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: iBook G4

CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)

Number Of CPUs: 1

CPU Speed: 1 GHz

L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB

Memory: 384 MB

Bus Speed: 133 MHz

Boot ROM Version: 4.7.7f0

Serial Number: UV3441SQPH0

Firmware is up to date too.

I now think it is a Machine Specific Disc problem as it won't install a package either.