Cannot install Tiger on my eMac

Jethryn Freyman · Jul 31, 2012

eMac [ATI Graphics], 1GHz G4, 1GB memory, 160GB hard disk, 32MB Radeon 7500, SuperDrive, Airport Extreme. Works perfectly. Came with Panther, 10.3.2, later I wiped it and upgraded it to Leopard, 10.5.8.

Anyway, I now want to use a specific Classic application, so I figured I'd wipe the drive and install Tiger (I've got the 4x CD, PowerPC only version of Tiger.) Those installer CDs have worked fine installing Tiger on my 466MHz Digital Audio G4 tower.

Anyway, I can install Leopard from my DVD, I can install Panther from the original eMac restore 10.3.2 DVDs, but not Tiger. It is recognised as an installer disk in the Startup Disk preferences in Panther, and if I have the CD in and boot up holding the option key, it shows up as a startup disc... but if I select it to boot from, or double-click the installer itself from within the Finder in Panther, or simply try to start up from the Tiger CD, it won't work. Grey screen, Apple logo, spinning gear... goes on for about 10 minutes then the computer just shuts off. It boots fine from a DiskWarrior CD, and after a [failed] Tiger installation [see below] I rebuild the directory and did everything I could, but still no success.

I've also tried using Pacifist on my G5 Mac to install Tiger over Firewire; I've also tried installing to a disk image on my G5 and then using SuperDuper to clone the drive and make sure it's bootable, but in both cases the eMac just boots to the flashing "?" missing system folder screen.

Ariii · Jul 31, 2012

Jethryn Freyman said:
eMac [ATI Graphics], 1GHz G4, 1GB memory, 160GB hard disk, 32MB Radeon 7500, SuperDrive, Airport Extreme. Works perfectly. Came with Panther, 10.3.2, later I wiped it and upgraded it to Leopard, 10.5.8.

Anyway, I now want to use a specific Classic application, so I figured I'd wipe the drive and install Tiger (I've got the 4x CD, PowerPC only version of Tiger.) Those installer CDs have worked fine installing Tiger on my 466MHz Digital Audio G4 tower.

Anyway, I can install Leopard from my DVD, I can install Panther from the original eMac restore 10.3.2 DVDs, but not Tiger. It is recognised as an installer disk in the Startup Disk preferences in Panther, and if I have the CD in and boot up holding the option key, it shows up as a startup disc... but if I select it to boot from, or double-click the installer itself from within the Finder in Panther, or simply try to start up from the Tiger CD, it won't work. Grey screen, Apple logo, spinning gear... goes on for about 10 minutes then the computer just shuts off. It boots fine from a DiskWarrior CD, and after a [failed] Tiger installation [see below] I rebuild the directory and did everything I could, but still no success.

I've also tried using Pacifist on my G5 Mac to install Tiger over Firewire; I've also tried installing to a disk image on my G5 and then using SuperDuper to clone the drive and make sure it's bootable, but in both cases the eMac just boots to the flashing "?" missing system folder screen.

Have you tried booting from the installer on your G5?

PowerPCMacMan · Jul 31, 2012

Hi,

Are you sure you are using the Tiger retail install DVD? Using OS X installer discs from another mac is probably the reason why you are having difficulty installing Tiger. Make sure the discs you are using for installing Tiger are NOT grey discs.. as those came with another Mac and will not work on the eMac.

Do you have the original discs which were shipped with the eMac? I believe 10.4.2 or 10.4.4 is the lowest you can go with the installer for your machine. Provide me with specs for your machine in system profiler and I can look it up. But my guess is that a regular 10.4 disc won't work.

Jethryn Freyman · Jul 31, 2012

Ariii said:
Have you tried booting from the installer on your G5?

Not yet, but that was my next step; I actually used that eMac to install Leopard on an unsupported 466MHz G4 tower

PowerPCMacMan said:
Hi,

Are you sure you are using the Tiger retail install DVD? Using OS X installer discs from another mac is probably the reason why you are having difficulty installing Tiger. Make sure the discs you are using for installing Tiger are NOT grey discs.. as those came with another Mac and will not work on the eMac.

Do you have the original discs which were shipped with the eMac? I believe 10.4.2 or 10.4.4 is the lowest you can go with the installer for your machine. Provide me with specs for your machine in system profiler and I can look it up. But my guess is that a regular 10.4 disc won't work.

The Tiger discs are standard Tiger CDs, not grey discs from another machine, the eMac originally came with 10.3.2 installed and I've installed Panther from the original reinstall discs that came with it. Updated to 10.3.9, beyond that, no Tiger joy

tom vilsack · Jul 31, 2012

maybe try this...make a image of your tiger dvd,place on a usb stick (simple to just use carbon copy and pick make image rather then clone)then boot your emac with your leopard dvd and partition it with two partitions (the second being about 10 gigs or so) then restore your tiger image thats on the usb stick to the second partition....then reboot,hold down option key and pick second drive...hopefully then tiger startup install will start and you can then install it to first partition......

Goftrey · Aug 1, 2012

tom vilsack said:
maybe try this...make a image of your tiger dvd,place on a usb stick (simple to just use carbon copy and pick make image rather then clone)then boot your emac with your leopard dvd and partition it with two partitions (the second being about 10 gigs or so) then restore your tiger image thats on the usb stick to the second partition....then reboot,hold down option key and pick second drive...hopefully then tiger startup install will start and you can then install it to first partition......

He could also just create another partition on his G5, install Tiger on there, then hook the eMac via Firewire and use CCC to clone the G5's Tiger partition.

Jethryn Freyman · Aug 1, 2012

SUCCESS:

Used SuperDuper to clone a 10.4.11 install on my 466MHz G4 tower as a disk image on my Macbook via Firewire, then restored it over Firewire to the eMac.

Classic doesn't work, even after copying the OS 9 system files over, software update crashes before it starts to download anything, but I'm working on that.

Thanks for the replies guys, it's what made me actually think of this method, so yeah.

Props <3

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Cannot install Tiger on my eMac

Jethryn Freyman

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Ariii

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PowerPCMacMan

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Jethryn Freyman

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tom vilsack

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Goftrey

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Jethryn Freyman

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