iMac G3(tray-loading) OS X 10.3 No-Go

[ddeadserious]

Picked it up on craigslist for $30 in nice physical condition, running OS9.

Figured I'd upgrade the 64MB of ram and load OSX on it and have a decent internet/iTunes machine.

I took a 128MB stick of ram out of my iBook(which I used these same Panther CDs on), figuring I'd at least get it up and running and then I'd steal the ram back and buy a 512 stick for it.

The problem is that I get a Kernel Panic when I insert my OSX 10.3 CD. The top of the panic says "Unable to find driver for this platform: iMac"

So I loaded back into OS9, ran software update and tried to update to the latest firmware, but every piece of firmware I downloaded said it was for another machine. Then I found a piece that worked on my iMac, but it said it either already had this firmware or newer.

My alternative was to make an iMacquarium out of it, but it's like melt-stamped on the top with the school name it was bought from, so I don't want to do through the work if it's not gonna look pretty.

I don't want to put hours of work into this thing, I just want to get it up and running and go set it up in my girlfriend's room.

So any ideas on how to get this thing running OSX?

 

[plinden]

First of all, is the Panther disk retail, or your iBook's install disk? If it's not retail, you won't be able to install on the iMac.

Lowendmac is a good place to look for hints on this - http://lowendmac.com/macdan/md07/1207.html

 

[ddeadserious]

First of all, is the Panther disk retail, or your iBook's install disk? If it's not retail, you won't be able to install on the iMac.

Lowendmac is a good place to look for hints on this - http://lowendmac.com/macdan/md07/1207.html

The Panther disk is not the iBook install disc, it's retail.

I'll look around lowendmac, thanks.

 

[ddeadserious]

Just had a thought.

Would cloning the HD on my iBook(running 10.3) onto an external(3.5" IDE, same as the iMac) work? Just clone the whole disc image onto the new HD and pop it in?

hmm...

 

[plinden]

That should work as long as the iMac's firmware is up to date. But read that lowendmac article. It seems there are issues with HD partition size for the earlier iMacs. But you can't really take my word for this. That iMac is before my time (I only jumped to Macs on the Intel switch) so I don't have any personal experience with it. By the way, although that article talks about Tiger, it should still be valid for Panther.

Also, you do realize that, although technically there's nothing stopping you from installing Panther from your retail disk, unless you have a family license you would be breaking the EULA? The fact that Apple doesn't lock down their OS is one of the things I love about it. I can clone the hard drive and boot off external drives without running into licensing issues. Although I'm sure there are plenty of people installing to more than one Mac, Apple can do this since, generally, Mac users are willing to pay for the OS instead of trying to pirate it.

 

[Amdahl]

I thought the earliest iMac G3s can't run OS X. There was a lawsuit over it.

 

[ddeadserious]

Ok.. Well it seems the charger board on the iBook died today.. so I'm waiting on an external enclosure for the iBook drive which I just removed...

I'll update back when I find out of cloning and replacing the hard drive works.

Thanks... and if someone else can confirm that it won't work on the first gen iMacs, that'd be cool.

 

[Willis]

10.3 requires

G3,G4 or G5

128mb min.

Try reformating the HDD? Or doing an upgrade from OS9 and not a clean install.

 

[ddeadserious]

10.3 requires

G3,G4 or G5

128mb min.

Try reformating the HDD? Or doing an upgrade from OS9 and not a clean install.

It doesn't get that far... It kernel panics as soon as it begins to boot from the CD.

 

[ddeadserious]

Strangely enough, it boots from my Tiger install discs(using xpostfacto) and is currently installing.

hmmmmmm

 

[disconap]

First of all, is the Panther disk retail, or your iBook's install disk? If it's not retail, you won't be able to install on the iMac.

Just a note--while it voids the user agreement, I know for fact that the ibook Jaguar and Panther install discs will work on any PPC mac. Pre-DVD standard, only the additional software discs were machine specific.

 

[ddeadserious]

Just wanted to update back here..

I spent a good portion of 2 evenings trying to get the iBook HD to clone onto the iMac HD. I kept getting random errors in SuperDuper! trying to clone it.

Turns out the HD I was trying to set up for the iMac(a used WD 80GB) was bad.

I tried another hard drive, and it cloned to it quickly with no errors. I changed the jumper setting on the HD and popped it in the iMac and it booted right up without issue.

It's running as well as a machine with 160MB of ram can run.


Also, I did partition the drive into a 7GB for the OS, and the rest of the space for storage, as I read this was necessary for the iMac to see the OS properly.