Trying to put OS X on PowerMac G3 B&W, but external DVD not seen

DrAW4Help · Feb 18, 2007

I have a PowerMac G3 Blue & White with 128Mb RAM running Mac OS 8.6
I want to upgrade to OS X (10.4). It has an internal CDROM drive, but I have the DVD version of the OS. I have an external DVD drive (Sony DRX-830UL-T). I thought I read somewhere I could attach the drive via the Firewire connections, reboot while holding the Option key down, and the Mac would recognize the drive. So far, no good.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

SmurfBoxMasta · Feb 18, 2007

DrAW4Help said:
I have a PowerMac G3 Blue & White with 128Mb RAM running Mac OS 8.6
I want to upgrade to OS X (10.4). It has an internal CDROM drive, but I have the DVD version of the OS. I have an external DVD drive (Sony DRX-830UL-T). I thought I read somewhere I could attach the drive via the Firewire connections, reboot while holding the Option key down, and the Mac would recognize the drive. So far, no good.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Well, actually you need to hold down the "c" key (not option) to boot from a drive/disk other than the internal one. But be warned, Tiger may not even install with only 128mb of ram.....IIRC the bare min is 256, and even that is frightfully & painfully slow.........

good luck

Killyp · Feb 18, 2007

Is it a USB drive? You can only boot from a firewire drive on the PPC Macs

spinne1 · Feb 18, 2007

Killyp said:
Is it a USB drive? You can only boot from a firewire drive on the PPC Macs

But you can't boot from firewire on the B & W G3s. Therefore, your answer is to get on ebay and buy a DVD drive (less than $10 for a DVD-ROM and about $40 last time I checked for a Pioneer Superdrive burner), or just go down to a local computer store and buy a DVD burner that is a Parallel ATA drive. With Patchburn it will likely work (but check the specific model on Google BEFORE you open the shrinkwrap off the box).

DrAW4Help · Feb 19, 2007

Thanks

Okay.
1. More memory
2. Use the USB connection
3. Find the "c" key
4. Consider getting a second DVD.
I appreciate the input.
Thanks again.

spinne1 · Feb 19, 2007

DrAW4Help said:
Okay.
1. More memory
2. Use the USB connection
3. Find the "c" key
4. Consider getting a second DVD.
I appreciate the input.
Thanks again.

Yes, and no. Yes to number 1. No to number 2. Yes to number 3 AFTER you buy an internal DVD drive. And yes to number four, but only if it is an internal DVD drive.

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Trying to put OS X on PowerMac G3 B&W, but external DVD not seen

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