Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

G4 iMac Resurrection

mrharryman

mrharryman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 5, 2021
17
35
Hi there - first off let me say this forum is AMAZING, an absolute gold mine of useful information to get my old iMac back into circulation, thank you!
So I dug my G4 iMac 20" out of deep, deep storage, hoping that I could get back to making some music with it as I used to back in the day before family commitments... and I'll admit I'd forgotten just how much I love it...
It's running Leopard, 1.25Gb of RAM for now but thanks to the info here I'll be changing the internal RAM to 1Gb (and changing the PRAM battery, again thanks for the tip!), and I've just picked up an airport Extreme card on eBay.
Essentially what I'll use it for is a Garageband station, which suits my needs perfectly. However, as it is right now, if I add a new track the screen doesn't update properly, the new track doesn't display, the other tracks can swap positions, but if I minimise and then reopen the window it sorts itself out.
I'm kind of hoping the extra RAM will help with this, but I'm also wondering if I should install Tiger, perhaps it'll run better with this version?
My main question is - if I were to install Tiger, will I lose everything on the harddrive (settings, other applications, garageband extra loops etc), does it do a completely clean install or does it detect that all that stuff is there and only replace the OS around it? I'm certain years ago when I installed Leopard that's what happened, I didn't lose anything, but if I'm going back a version does that change things...?
And if so, should I just jump in and replace the harddrive with an SSD? I'm not overly bothered about storage space or boot speed, but I'm aware the harddrive in there is knocking on 20yrs old and won't necessarily last forever...
Any and all advice gratefully received!

Thanks!
Harry
 
  • Like
Reactions: CooperBox, RogerWilco6502, Amethyst1 and 1 other person
mrharryman said:
And if so, should I just jump in and replace the harddrive with an SSD? I'm not overly bothered about storage space or boot speed, but I'm aware the harddrive in there is knocking on 20yrs old and won't necessarily last forever...
Click to expand...
Adding that you can only get "new old stock" IDE drives these days, I'd strongly suggest looking into replacing the old drive with something more reliable. Speed isn't paramount as you say.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer and mrharryman
Amethyst1 said:
Adding that you can only get "new old stock" IDE drives these days, I'd strongly suggest looking into replacing the old drive with something more reliable. Speed isn't paramount as you say.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice! From what I've been reading here, would that mean a SATA SSD, an IDE to SATA cable, and an adaptor to fit the smaller 2.5" drive in the 3.5" space?
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer and Amethyst1
Amethyst1 said:
Yep. :)
Click to expand...
Right then - this is becoming more of a project 😀 are there any restrictions on what kind of SSD, any specs I should avoid? I see there are 250Gb ones around for £30ish, I'm inclined to buy a brand I recognise (Samsung, Kingston, Crucial etc) but there are obviously cheaper ones out there...
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502 and Amethyst1
I would say that an SSD is a good idea. They are pretty cheap these days and the old drive can then be a backup for your data. You'll definitely notice the improvement with a SSD.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mrharryman
Well... I guess if I'm opening the thing anyway, might as well change the harddrive too...
Any thoughts on Tiger vs Leopard for my Garageband needs...?
 
mrharryman said:
Any thoughts on Tiger vs Leopard for my Garageband needs...?
Click to expand...
No idea with regards to GarageBand or whether downgrading is possible while preserving applications and user data I'm afraid but Tiger's UI is definitely lighter than Leopard's. The iMac's GPU lacks support for Core Image which Leo's UI heavily taps into, forcing the CPU to handle it and causing additional load.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dextructor, RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer and 1 other person
mrharryman said:
My main question is - if I were to install Tiger, will I lose everything on the harddrive (settings, other applications, garageband extra loops etc), does it do a completely clean install or does it detect that all that stuff is there and only replace the OS around it? I'm certain years ago when I installed Leopard that's what happened, I didn't lose anything, but if I'm going back a version does that change things...?
Click to expand...
Hi Harry.

When you upgrade, the system sees everything and just upgrades it with the newer file. But, when you downgrade the system sees that there is a newer file and it won't replace with an older file - particularly if there is no equivalent (because the upgrade added a feature the older OS doesn't have).

What will happen is that in trying to do this the installer will show you a stop sign for your boot drive. The only way around this is either to wipe the drive or install a new installation. If you choose the latter, your old install goes into a folder called "Previous Systems" (or some such similarly named folder). All of your data will remain, but you'll have to move it over and you will have to go through and set up all your system prefs and app prefs once again.

If you wipe the drive and reinstall the OS it's the same thing, only you'd have to restore your data from a backup. The problem with the previous systems folder is that all that old stuff is no longer used and takes up space.

If you want to do this, it's up to you on the approach.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dextructor, RogerWilco6502, Amethyst1 and 2 others
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, Amethyst1 and TheShortTimer
eyoungren said:
Hi Harry.

When you upgrade, the system sees everything and just upgrades it with the newer file. But, when you downgrade the system see that there is a newer file and it won't replace with an older file - particularly if there is no equivalent (because the upgrade added a feature the older OS doesn't have).

What will happen is that in trying to do this the installer will show you a stop sign for your boot drive. The only way around this is either to wipe the drive or install a new installation. If you choose the latter, your old install goes into a folder called "Previous Systems" (or some such similarly named folder). All of your data will remain, but you'll have to move it over and you will have to go through and set up all your system prefs and app prefs once again.

If you wipe the drive and reinstall the OS it's the same thing, only you'd have to restore your data from a backup. The problem with the previous systems folder is that all that old stuff is no longer used and takes up space.

If you want to do this, it's up to you on the approach.
Click to expand...
Thank you - that does make sense, this is really good info 😀
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, Amethyst1, TheShortTimer and 1 other person
Well, if the Startech red one is the one to go for, I'll go hunting...
Thank you all so much for your help and advice 😀 I'll let you know how I get on (or I'll come back for more advice when I break something...)
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren and RogerWilco6502
  • Like
Reactions: CooperBox, dextructor, Amethyst1 and 1 other person
If making music is your only objective I'd stick with Tiger. Also, you might want to rethink using Garageband - unless you have a very specific use case that you've tried and tested all those years ago.
I say this because Garageband is very resource hungry - I remember buying a 1Ghz 12" Powerbook when they came out and was shocked to to see Garageband struggle to play a 5 track song!

They are lots of alternatives - go looking at macintosh garden or OS9 Lives - aim for something that has system requirements below your iMac's spec.

Whatever you go with I hope you post your results on here :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, dextructor, eyoungren and 1 other person
The good news - I got the RAM and PRAM battery fitted without killing the Mac... It booted happily and proudly displays it now has 2Gb of RAM...
The bad news - Garageband still does the same thing... So next stop is either installing Tiger or picking a different music software package as dronecatcher suggested. Thing is, I love the simplicity of Garageband and all the built in loops you can add on and adjust tempo etc...
SSD not arrived yet!
 
  • Like
Reactions: dextructor and RogerWilco6502
mrharryman said:
The bad news - Garageband still does the same thing... So next stop is either installing Tiger or picking a different music software package as dronecatcher suggested. Thing is, I love the simplicity of Garageband and all the built in loops you can add on and adjust tempo etc...
Click to expand...

You could try Steinberg Remix which is a cut down version of Ableton Live? It's from 2002 so is very frugal on resources.

I've attached the manual - have a look, if you're interested I'll make a disk image and upload it.
 

Attachments

  • Remix Reference-Manual.pdf
    1.5 MB · Views: 127
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer, mrharryman and 1 other person
Dronecatcher said:
You could try Steinberg Remix which is a cut down version of Ableton Live? It's from 2002 so is very frugal on resources.

I've attached the manual - have a look, if you're interested I'll make a disk image and upload it.
Click to expand...
That is enormously kind of you! I think at this stage I'm largely sold on reverting to Tiger and seeing if that gets Garageband to work the way it used to - if I can sort that then I'll have exactly what I want I think... Plus I quite like the idea of a fresh installation, my Mac has been the way it is for a decade plus...
But I'll definitely bear this in mind, thank you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer and Dronecatcher
mrharryman said:
Plus I quite like the idea of a fresh installation, my Mac has been the way it is for a decade plus...
But I'll definitely bear this in mind, thank you!
Click to expand...

No problem - I've saved a disk image of it if you change your mind.

A fresh install I find is always a good option in any circumstances :)

Check here for Garageband versions that may be better suited for your iMac:

 
  • Like
Reactions: dextructor, RogerWilco6502, TheShortTimer and 1 other person
You know, that's got me thinking - could this actually be a problem caused by my version of iLife...? I'm pretty sure I'm still on '04 which came with Panther all those years ago... Could this weird screen refresh issue be simply that I need a newer version with Leopard?
I'll grab '06 and give it a try...
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502
Poking around I found this article about Apple releasing updates for iLife 06 and 08 to make them compatible with Leopard... Which suggests (a) updates were needed and (b) they didn't update 04 which presumably also could have done with some...
Screenshot_20210206-181524_Chrome.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back