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How do I wipe and reload most up to date software on a Older PowerPc G4 10.4.11

A

applelover4u

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
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can anyone of you smart people help me....

I bought a older g4 PowerPC book that I went to 1. Wipe clean and 2. Restore the G4 with the most up to date Mac OS i can use on it

Here is the specs

Mac OS 10.4.11
Processor 1.33 Ghz PowerPC G4
Memory 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Model A1055


So which mac os can i use which from what I have seen it look like 10.5 leopard and how do I need a boot cd or anything to load it up?

Looking for the best and easy way ofcourse

Thanks
 
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You'll need a Mac OS X Leopard install DVD. These are available on eBay for between $30-40, or you can burn a DVD yourself for much less; if you choose the latter, google a tutorial. Once booted up from the install DVD, go to the menu bar and find Disk Utility. From here you can wipe your hard drive. Then proceed with installing Leopard.
 
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You will want to add more memory, if you want any kind of reasonable use. Leopard on only 512MB is going to be a little painful.
Any 1.33 PowerBook can have 1GB RAM in each slot, so maximum is 2 GB, except for 12-inch display, which has only one slot.
 
DeltaMac said:
You will want to add more memory, if you want any kind of reasonable use. Leopard on only 512MB is going to be a little painful.
Any 1.33 PowerBook can have 1GB RAM in each slot, so maximum is 2 GB, except for 12-inch display, which has only one slot.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I may add more memory if I can find some. Does it take basically any kind of laptop memory
 
Ah, I see that your A1055 model is a 14.1-inch iBook, called a iBook G4, Late 2004

The memory specs are for PC-2100 DDR SDRAM SODIMM. Your iBook G4 will certainly work with PC-2700.
And, you should expect that PC-3200 would also work, although it won't make your laptop run faster.
Here's an example of compatible memory - http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ibook-g4-(late-2004)/CT2302101

You have a single RAM slot, with 256MB permanently installed.
So, you can add 1GB in that slot, giving you a maximum of 1.25 GB memory.

Unfortunately, DDR is not what you could call current memory, which is usually DDR3, quickly moving to DDR4
 
DeltaMac said:
Ah, I see that your A1055 model is a 14.1-inch iBook, called a iBook G4, Late 2004

The memory specs are for PC-2100 DDR SDRAM SODIMM. Your iBook G4 will certainly work with PC-2700.
And, you should expect that PC-3200 would also work, although it won't make your laptop run faster.
Here's an example of compatible memory - http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ibook-g4-(late-2004)/CT2302101

You have a single RAM slot, with 256MB permanently installed.
So, you can add 1GB in that slot, giving you a maximum of 1.25 GB memory.

Unfortunately, DDR is not what you could call current memory, which is usually DDR3, quickly moving to DDR4
Click to expand...
Thanks I was just going to ask what memory should i get!!! So that is what i should get and install 10.5 leopard! Awesome and thanks to all

Could I find this memory cheaper on amazon or ebay?
[doublepost=1488344450][/doublepost]Is it easy to change the memory out? Looking at the bottom of this nice ibook i see some screws

and also is it easy to change out the harddrive for a bigger one?Like what is the max GB harddrive I could put in?
 
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The memory is not on the bottom of an iBook.
It's under the keyboard, which easily flips up by releasing the latches near the top corners of the keyboard.
Remove the airport card, which sits in a depression, which in turn hides the RAM slot. That panel has 4 tiny screws. Remove those. The panel covers the RAM slot.

On the other hand: the hard drive in an iBook G4 is quite a challenge to replace.
The bottom cover, the top case, shields on both the top and bottom, and lots of tiny screws that you must keep track of. (50 screws to get at the hard drive, IIRC.
You should find good walk-throughs at iFixit.com.
Found it... https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iBook_G4_14"_933_MHz-1.33_GHz

I don't know about what you can find for replacement hard drives, however. I suspect that you won't easily find something with more space than what you have now. You do have to find something with PATA interface (not SATA). There ARE SSDs that you can find with PATA interface. You might find something with 120GB capacity. There really is no limit with the hardware itself, but the challenge is finding an internal drive with the larger capacity that you might want.
 
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Sorry to be the contrarian here, but I'd suggest you stay with OS X 10.4.11 Tiger and simply create a new User Account. I've got two iBook G4's and several other G4 Mac's in my collection. You'll find your new purchase will run most everything of its vintage reasonably well under Tiger. However Leopard is (in my opinion) much more bloated as it's a dual-chipset install and it has way more stuff running in the background. And you won't find much improved compatibility now, to go from an 11-year-old OS (Tiger) to a 9-year-old OS (Leopard). Seriously, give it a shot as-is and you might be very impressed with what you can do!
 
DeltaMac said:
You mis-read that page.
Says
All iBooks have permanent RAM (onboard) of varying sizes, depending on model. The single slot adds to that permanent RAM, in this case 256 MB onboard, plus up to 1.0 GB in that slot, for a total of 1.25 GB
Click to expand...

Yes we are agreeing with each other. i read and understood it correctly lol.. Meant the max removable ram
[doublepost=1488417164][/doublepost]
eRondeau said:
Sorry to be the contrarian here, but I'd suggest you stay with OS X 10.4.11 Tiger and simply create a new User Account. I've got two iBook G4's and several other G4 Mac's in my collection. You'll find your new purchase will run most everything of its vintage reasonably well under Tiger. However Leopard is (in my opinion) much more bloated as it's a dual-chipset install and it has way more stuff running in the background. And you won't find much improved compatibility now, to go from an 11-year-old OS (Tiger) to a 9-year-old OS (Leopard). Seriously, give it a shot as-is and you might be very impressed with what you can do!
Click to expand...

Really I never thought of that actually

Says it should run fine here:

Apple states the following basic Leopard system requirements, although, for some specific applications and actions (such as iChat backdrops) an Intel processor is required:[61]

  • Processor: any Intel processor, or PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 MHz and faster) processor
  • Optical drive: internal or external DVD drive (for installation of the operating system)
  • Memory: minimum 512 MB of RAM (additional RAM (1 GB) is recommended for development purposes)
  • Hard drive capacity: Minimum 9 GB of disk space available.
[doublepost=1488418902][/doublepost]
eRondeau said:
Sorry to be the contrarian here, but I'd suggest you stay with OS X 10.4.11 Tiger and simply create a new User Account. I've got two iBook G4's and several other G4 Mac's in my collection. You'll find your new purchase will run most everything of its vintage reasonably well under Tiger. However Leopard is (in my opinion) much more bloated as it's a dual-chipset install and it has way more stuff running in the background. And you won't find much improved compatibility now, to go from an 11-year-old OS (Tiger) to a 9-year-old OS (Leopard). Seriously, give it a shot as-is and you might be very impressed with what you can do!
Click to expand...


Looks like they done some bench marking and comparison. Say leopard runs fine when maxed out on ram a
http://lowendmac.com/2009/is-leopard-slower-than-tiger-on-g4-macs/

http://lowendmac.com/2012/tiger-or-leopard-for-powerpc-macs-does-it-matter-anymore/

I guess it all depends
 
What software can i use to burn the dvd. Its not working? can i use a USB or something?
 
Some iBooks do not have a DVD burner (Superdrive), only a combo drive (Read/write CDs, DVD are read only). You should find a label inside the battery compartment that will tell you which kind of optical drive was installed when new.
No dual-layer DVD burners ever shipped in iBooks, IIRC.

You COULD burn the installer image to a USB drive (it's a challenge to boot to a USB device, it doesn't always work reliably, but is possible)
I use a partition on an external Firewire drive, which works great (but you would need to have a firewire drive to do that, too.)
 
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