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How to downgrade to Tiger

Interesting, I found myself here because I'm actually working on trying to get the exact same thing to work. Having the same problem with my Tiger disc bumping me a blue screen where the PowerBook effectively locks up. I'm working on a 15,8 and have tried so many different combinations of trying to get Tiger installed.

One thing I can say, I know the optical drive works fine. Been burning the install discs from it since I was thinking that maybe ImgBurn wasn't doing it for me.

OP if I get this figured out on my end, I'll update you with what I found :)
 
CyclonesWorld said:
I'm working on a 15,8 and have tried so many different combinations of trying to get Tiger installed.
Click to expand...

If it is a 5,8 (Late 2005) you need to use either the 10.4.6 retail disc (preferred) or the grey 10.4.2 discs that originally came with the machine.

The original 10.4.0 retail disc is too old for this machine.
 
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I'm using 10.4.2 that I snagged from Mac Repository. Currently waiting on 4.6 to finish downloading. Hoping I'll have better luck getting that version to boot from USB, because I can't find any blank dvds and I swear I had some! I've been using the 4 CD version, not sure if that makes a difference.

One option I was considering was booting the drive with the Leopard disc and wiping it. But I'd hate to do that then be stuck in square 1, but worst case Leopard should reinstall.
 
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Interesting. If that's the case, it explains why I was up till 4am for no good reason lol.

I'm working with 10.4.6 now that was posted earlier in the thread, hopefully I can get it to boot from a USB drive so I don't have to goto the store :)
 
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forums.macrumors.com

Installing Tiger by USB on wiped PowerBook G4

Not sure if this is the right place for posting this, but I recently got my hands on a 17" PowerBook G4 with a wiped hard drive. I have a .dmg of 10.4 that I'm trying to write to a USB flash drive so I can boot from it and install Tiger. I don't have access to any system running OS X so I can't...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
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Abbbby333 said:
This is an A1139 which was made in 2005. Would that be too late for the original disk to work? It does appear to just be 10.4.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is too new for your 10.4.0 disc - so, good that you got 10.4.6 from the Garden. :)
 
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Amethyst1 said:
forums.macrumors.com

Installing Tiger by USB on wiped PowerBook G4

Not sure if this is the right place for posting this, but I recently got my hands on a 17" PowerBook G4 with a wiped hard drive. I have a .dmg of 10.4 that I'm trying to write to a USB flash drive so I can boot from it and install Tiger. I don't have access to any system running OS X so I can't...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
[automerge]1595340768[/automerge]

Yes, that is too new for your 10.4.0 disc - so, good that you got 10.4.6 from the Garden. :)
Click to expand...

Looks like I'm having luck with 10.4.6. Downloaded the image, mounted it, and used Disk Util to restore it to a thumbdrive.

Rebooted in OF, and typed boot ud:,\\:tbxi

Now I'm in the 10.4.6 installer. So I think we're cooking with gas now.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
You have to burn the dmg as an image. Disk Utility will do it. Open it, go to Image > Burn, select the dmg and off you go.
Click to expand...
Ah! that is different than what I was doing. I'm in Catelina and it looks like it not longer supports burning through Disk Utility? I tried to do it from the finder, but I keep getting this error message.
IMG_7855.JPG


Is there an issue with the .dmg or is this because I'm on Catalina?
 
Catalina may have issues with the image (which is known to be good). Do you have another Mac running an older version of macOS to try? Alternatively, Toast Titanium is worth giving a shot but it's not free.
 
@Abbbby333 Disk Utility's face is invalid. The tools (and generally, operating system) in OS X 10.11 and up is utter garbage. DU can't burn discs, rip discs, repair permissions, or even partition the damn disk from some low-end, confusing interface in a way it used to have no problem with without spitting out error after error.

I could really go on for days. Don't bother wasting your time with this incompetent joke of a utility.

If you have the ability, you need OS X 10.10 or lower to be able to do anything with discs (and generally, anything else of use in a multi-platform environment).

If that isn't an option, and your Mac lacks the shock-collar T2 chip, boot from a Linux Live USB (https://elementary.io/) made with Etcher (https://www.balena.io/etcher/), install brasero (from the desktop, Command + T, sudo apt install brasero), and burn the DMG from there. Alternatively, you may try GNOME Disks (sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility), however I am not 100% if it can burn discs. Even still, there are other disc-burning utilities a drop of a hat away if they are required.
 
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Ok! update!
I downloaded the .dmg to a computer running high Sierra. I was able to actually burn the disk image, but at the end I received an error message saying that the burn failed to verify. I popped it in my G4 and it did recognize the disk as an install disk but in the reboot it brought me to this screen.
IMG_7863.JPG

IMG_7864.JPG


I'm gonna check out my other computers and see if any of them are running less then 10.10.
 
Could be a dud burn (most likely given error msg), also corrupted download (checksum OK?) or iffy optical drive in the PB.
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
Do you know exactly what model of 17" G4 you have? It's possible it came out after the gold master of Tiger did, making it not possible to use the retail disc you have.
Click to expand...
For the record, I have a 1.33Ghz 12” iBook G4 that came with 10.4.3 (pretty sure it was 10.4.3, I know it was newer than 10.4.0)
and I am able to boot 10.4.0 on it using a retail disc. It installs like normal, but IIRC it did have some weird glitches like airport not being recognized and the trackpad not being fully recognized. Updating to 10.4.11 fixed it and gave it a fully working Tiger install. I didn’t do anything special, it just worked. The glitches made me realize that it was probably not designed for 10.4.0.
 
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hmm.... The 1.33 Ghz 12" Powerbook G4 came originally with 10.3.3 (Panther).
The 1.33GHz was discontinued in Jan 2005.
Tiger was not released until late April 2005.
Even the later 1.5GHz 12-inch shipped first with Panther (shipped later with a special build of 10.4.2, so maybe you have a 1.5GHz)
 
DeltaMac said:
hmm.... The 1.33 Ghz 12" Powerbook G4 came originally with 10.3.3 (Panther).
The 1.33GHz was discontinued in Jan 2005.
Tiger was not released until late April 2005.
Even the later 1.5GHz 12-inch shipped first with Panther (shipped later with a special build of 10.4.2, so maybe you have a 1.5GHz)
Click to expand...
iBook, not PowerBook. The 1.33Ghz 12” iBook is a 2005.

However, I do have two 12” 1.5Ghz PowerBooks; they have also booted 10.4.0.
 
Amethyst1 said:
Did you get a KP in 10.4.0 when shutting down or restarting? Mine did that.
Click to expand...
I can’t remember, but I don’t think so. I updated to 10.4.11 pretty much immediately.

I should clarify that the aforementioned PowerBooks were only booted to the installer, which is still technically 10.4.0. They both have Leopard and only Leopard installed. The iBook was fully installed with 10.4.0 then updated.
 
Update: Last night I had success! I found one of my old computers that still booted up and was running 10.10.3 (? I can't remember the last digit). I was able to burn the .dmg to a dvd through disk utility which worked perfectly as far as I can tell on the powerbook! I now have 10.4.6 installed on the powerbook and it seems to be running great! Now I just need to figure out how to upgrade to 10.4.11 and enable the classic environment!
 
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Abbbby333 said:
Update: Last night I had success! I found one of my old computers that still booted up and was running 10.10.3 (? I can't remember the last digit). I was able to burn the .dmg to a dvd through disk utility which worked perfectly as far as I can tell on the powerbook! I now have 10.4.6 installed on the powerbook and it seems to be running great! Now I just need to figure out how to upgrade to 10.4.11 and enable the classic environment!
Click to expand...
Yay! :D

That 10.4.11 update pack is what you need to fully update Tiger :)
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
Yay! :D

That 10.4.11 update pack is what you need to fully update Tiger :)
Click to expand...

Do I do that in the same way that I installed 10.4.6 (burn to a disk and install) or is there a better way to do it? I've seen a few people mention a way to do it with a usb drive, but I haven't found more detailed how-to on how that works.

Also, does this update include the things that will enable classic or will I have to do that seperatly?
 
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Abbbby333 said:
Do I do that in the same way that I installed 10.4.6 (burn to a disk and install) or is there a better way to do it? I've seen a few people mention a way to do it with a usb drive, but I haven't found more detailed how-to on how that works.

Also, does this update include the things that will enable classic or will I have to do that seperatly?
Click to expand...

OTA update should work to get to .11. You'll need a OS 9 system folder for classic. Look in the Garden for one.
 
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