HELP! Panther upgrade won't load up mac

[miloUK]

Following some positive advice, I foolishly installed the panther disks from my 12"iBook on to my 15" iMac to upgrade from 10.1

Installation went fine and completed but when it reached the username & password login screen the rainbow pointer just spun round forever and i was unable to type anything onto logon screen. This happened everytime I restarted. I'm guessing this is because its an iBook only version of panther.

Luckily everything is still there as I have checked on Target Disk. However, what do i do now? is it possible to downgrade back to my original 10.1? I've
really messed up and need to get the mac running again ASAP

Please help! would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Milo

 

[King Cobra]

All right... this is the second "case" I've read in two weeks in which a person installs computer-specific OS X disks for one Mac on a second Mac, resulting in the second Mac being screwed up. NEVER use computer-specific OS X disks on another Mac of a different kind than the original Mac.

With that being said, yes, you can install OS X from your iMac's OS X disks back onto your machine through an Archive and install. That will get rid of the login problem, as well as eliminate a whole bunch of kernal panics you would have gotten, given that you got past the login screen. BUT...I recommend that you back up all your necessary data and then do a full Erase and Install before you go back to your iMac's original version of OS X for two reasons: [1] Some problems from the faulty OS X that would carry over will be removed. [2] Your iMac will see a speed improvement.

 

[miloUK]

Thank you!

I thought it was a bad idea but was assured it was a fine thing to do. Anyhow will back up and start all over again i think. Though there is not actuallyenough space on my iBook to copy everything!

The other problem now being that my iMac is re-installing Panther again because it started installation process and wouldnt quite without deleting OSX altogether, so i decided to go with it - am hoping everything will still be there when i target disk again even after a 2nd BAD installation of panther.

 

[miloUK]

i decided to install OSX 10.1 again for the mean time, as i unfortunately do not have enough space on my iBook to back-up everything - I tried re-installing by loading the installation disk, but it said that as a newer version of OSX had been installed i would be unable to install an older version. I didn't want to delete Panther off there as there will only be OS9 left and i thought that might mess things up as i only ever really used OSX.

So how do i go about putting my original 10.1 back on? what is this archive and install?

Sorry for being a muppet but this is incredibly important



p.s I didnt really want to delete everything and then install 10.1, i'd rather go out and get panther (or even wait for tiger) and start over again with a proper version of OSX I also figured that the re-installation might put me back to normal without any complications.

 

[King Cobra]

I doubt your iMac can run 10.1.0 or 10.1.1, as it was shipped with originally 10.1.2 at the least. So you would need your iMac's OS X CDs or a copy of Jaguar to reinstall.

 

[miloUK]

I have the software disks for OSX 10.1.2

 

[miloUK]

Anyone? Please??

 

[King Cobra]

So how do i go about putting my original 10.1 back on? what is this archive and install?

Boot from your iMac's OS X first CD. Just before you get to the last step in the OS X instalation process, there should be a button in the OS X installation process called Options, or Customize... I don't recall directly... but one of them should result in a pop-up. One of the options from the pop-up is a checkbox for Archive and Install. That means instead of writing over your System folder, your old System (for OS X) will become unbootable, and the installer will make a new System folder for you iMac to use OS X.

EDIT: "Archive and Install" has been discussed numerous times at MacRumors. If you search for what a term means, then you'll probably find the information you need faster than waiting for someone to respond to your posts.

 

[jeremy.king]

Following some positive advice, I foolishly installed the panther disks from my 12"iBook on to my 15" iMac to upgrade from 10.1

You obviously didn't read WordMunger's post

And lets stop violating software agreements . Just go buy another copy of Panther.

 

[King Cobra]

Just go buy another copy of Panther.

He never did have an original copy. Panther itself is Apple's current operating system for all G3, G4 and G5 Macs since the original G3 iMac. (So far, we agree on that, right?) His copy of OS 10.3 is for only his iBook and all identical iBook models, not all Macs. Thus, he never had a copy of Panther, just Panther for specific iBook models.

For the more programming inclined: Panther supports the set of computers (or set "Panther"): {iMac G3, iMac G4, PowerMac G3, PowerMac G4, PowerMac G5, iBook G3, iBook G4, Powerbook G3, Powerbook G4}. For now, let's imply that miloUK's version of Panther for his iBook supports all iBook models to reduce the complexity of the collections "iBook G3" and "iBook G4" in the above set Panther. miloUK's copy of Panther covers only the following set of comuters (or set "Panther for iBook"): {null, null, null, null, null, iBook G3, iBook G4, null, null}. Null means that there is no collection at that position in the set to satisfy the range of collections for set "Panther for iBook." Because the sets Panther and Panther for iBook do not contain the same collections of Macs, you cannot say that Mac OS X Panther and miloUK's iBook varient of Panther are the same. Hence, he never had a copy of Panther. So you're effectively saying to miloUK to buy a copy of something in addition to some copy of the same thing that he doesn't have, which doesn't make sense.

Now the visual variation: You can represent each of the collections in set Panther as respective numbers (i.e. iMac G3 = 1, iMac G4 = 2, PowerMac G3 = 3, etc.) and imagine the numbers represented as dots along a number line: ••••••••••> Again, I'm using the implication that miloUK's version of Panther for his iBook supports all iBook models to reduce the complexity of the collections "iBook G3" and "iBook G4." You can then represent each collection of miloUK's set as numbers and then as dots along a second number line, except that everywhere there is a "null" collection, there is no dot. So miloUK's number line would look like this: ------••--> As you can see, the two number lines have different matching positions, and hence, the original two sets have a different range of collections that satisfy each set.

Credit goes to joey j from the joey j vs. spikey flamewar back in 2001 for the idea of demonstrating a point using sets.

kingjr3, I'm giving you a "hard time" only because you gave miloUK a "hard time" in not supporting his efforts to restore OS 10.1.2 onto his iMac.