Help me get my G4 set up?

[Intell]

Use a Leopard disc. Leopard is 10.5, this is the version you need. Do not use Snow Leopard, 10.6, as it will not boot on your Mac.

 

[minifridge1138]

umm no... i said the exact same thing that you did. people have installed SL on a HDD and moved the HDD to an older machine.

YOU CAN NOT INSTALL OR RUN SNOW LEOPARD ON A G4 MAC.
G4 is PowerPC.
Snow Leopard is Intel Only.

You can use a newer PowerPC mac to install Leopard onto a hard drive, then transplant the hard drive into an older PowerPC mac. That works.
You can not install or run snow leopard on a power pc mac.

You can use a newer Intel mac to install Snow Leopard onto a hard drive, then transplant the hard drive into an older Intel mac. That works.
You can not install or run snow leopard on a power pc mac.


OP, you're stuck at the spinning wheel because you're using an intel install image on a power pc mac OR because the G4 is suffering from a hardware error. I've seen that exact same behavior in both situations.

 

[pistooli]

and one more thing...

You can not install or run snow leopard on a power pc mac.

 

[MAC MAN JW]

System Requirements for OS X 10.4-10.6

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Mac computer with an Intel processor (You do not have a intel processor so you can NOT run snow leopard on your G4)
1GB of memory
5GB of available disk space
DVD drive for installation

OS X 10.5 Leopard
A Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or Power PC G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor
512 MB memory or more
A DVD drive for installation
9 GB of available disk space or more

OS X 10.4 Tiger
A PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
At least 256 MB of RAM
DVD drive (DVD-ROM), Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) or SuperDrive (DVD-R) for installation
At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools.

Tiger will work for sure From the photo you posted of the kp it says "PowerMac 3,1" That is a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth so your CPU (If not upgraded) is a 350-500MHz G4 To install Leopard you need to do what is in this link http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html You will need 512MB Ram or more. You have one of the best G4's ever made The sawtooth will last for ever. You can find retail OS X 10.4 And 10.5 Discs on Ebay. Please do not Download pirate Software. You can find Leopard and Tiger discs on Ebay or ask a friend if they have a Leopard or Tiger disc you can use



This is the Retail OS X Leopard Disc this is the one you need for your G4

 

[Chris230291]

The USB HDD booted fine, but i get that message telling me it cant be installed on this computer?

So it looks like 10.5.X doesn't work on my powermac G4?

 

[Intell]

The USB HDD booted fine, but i get that message telling me it cant be installed on this computer?

So it looks like 10.5.X doesn't work on my powermac G4?

That or your pirated copy is missing some critical things. Just buy a retail disc already.

 

[Chris230291]

System Requirements for OS X 10.4-10.6

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Mac computer with an Intel processor (You do not have a intel processor so you can NOT run snow leopard on your G4)
1GB of memory
5GB of available disk space
DVD drive for installation

OS X 10.5 Leopard
A Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or Power PC G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor
512 MB memory or more
A DVD drive for installation
9 GB of available disk space or more

OS X 10.4 Tiger
A PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
At least 256 MB of RAM
DVD drive (DVD-ROM), Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) or SuperDrive (DVD-R) for installation
At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools.

Tiger will work for sure From the photo you posted of the kp it says "PowerMac 3,1" That is a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth so your CPU (If not upgraded) is a 350-500MHz G4 To install Leopard you need to do what is in this link http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html You will need 512MB Ram or more. You have one of the best G4's ever made The sawtooth will last for ever. You can find retail OS X 10.4 And 10.5 Discs on Ebay

View attachment 326904

This is the Retail OS X Leopard Disc this is the one you need for your G4

DUDE! that was very helpful XD
I will try it now.

PS, i have 1 restore leopard disk, 1 retail leopard disk and the same for snow leopard.
I needed the downloaded version because my disk drive will not read the dual layer disks provided by apple. I could have just made the SL (single layer) image myself, but instead i downloaded one because i didn't want to make my own and it was quicker.

 

[Chris230291]

Can this line be changed to look at the USB HDD instead of the CD?

"boot cd:,\\:tbxi"

What would i need to type?

Thanks.

EDIT: i missed the update that tells me to try "mac-boot", this worked fine.

I'm installing now