iMac G4/800 install Tiger without working DVD drive?

[Berenod]

Hi,

I have "inherited" a free 15" iMac G4, 800Mhz, 256 MB ram.
Visually in pretty much perfect condition, not yellowed at all, been sitting for ages (apparently >10 years!) in its original box in a dry and warm attic.

Set everything up, didn't boot at all, bit of googling, did the PRAM reset with the pretty darn well hidden button, and after that booted straight away.

Runs on 10.2 Jaguar (with them lovely grey pinstripes).

As it is in such beautiful condition I'd love to get the max useability out of it, but alas, the one thing not wordking is the superdrive. Shows up on the IDE bus, but ejecting doesn't do anything at all, not even the slightest bit of noise.

Any idea how to get 10.4 Tiger on it without a working DVD drive? As I recall these machines boot only from internal IDE or firewire (and I have no such drive or enclosure), so I guess a USB DVD drive is useless here...

Came with the "Pro speakers", so would actually love to use it to play some internet radio streams, but with the outdated browser unable to get to any modern website, and Links2 or the likes need at least 10.3 as OS I think...

Plan to disassemble to get any dustbunnies out, clean the fan and do the max memory upgrade (one full size stick and one small in the bottom).
Could do a DVD replacement, but unfortunately I threw the last IDE DVD away some time ago, didn't imagine ever being able to use it somewhere
At least I can now make my point to the missus (who btw loves the design of that flowerpot iMac) that forcing me to clean up and throw away old stuff is ALWAYS a bad idea

Any tips to get it up to 10.4 without DVD drive welcomed!!!

Cheers

 

[Berenod]

By the way, the thing even came with a 20GB classic iPod (with the firewire dock)

 

[Amethyst1]

You can install 10.4 from a USB DVD drive or pen drive. PPC Macs can boot from USB.

But with just 256 MB RAM, it won’t be fun.

 

[Berenod]

You can install 10.4 from a USB DVD drive or pen drive. PPC Macs can boot from USB.

But with just 256 MB RAM, it won’t be fun.

Sure about that?

All I can find seems to contradict that. Including several posts here on Macrumors.

But browsing through it all it looks that the working 20GB ipod I have with Firewire dock can be a solution!
Another would be using one of my other MAcs in Traget drive mode but I don't have a regular firewire cable lying around, so iPod it will be...

• The vast majority of PowerPC Macs did not support booting from USB devices. Towards the end of then PowerPC era Apple rolled out a change to Open Firmware in the last models to enable USB booting. Your G4 iMac though would not be one of these models.

iMac G4 not booting from install USB

Hello, I just got an old iMac G4 1GHz 15" model from a neighbor. The iMac ran Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and I wanted to upgrade it to 10.5 Leopard. However, since the optical drive was dead, and the iMac would not accept a newer Apple external super drive, I tried something else. Using a MacBook...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Amethyst1]

All I can find seems to contradict that. Including several posts here on Macrumors.

That information is not fully accurate. Minding exceptions to the rule, any Mac introduced in late 1999 or later can boot from USB. However, USB drives do not show up in the boot picker (that appears when you hold Alt/Option after turning on) on some Macs, incorrectly suggesting they cannot be booted from. So you have to try doing it manually.

But browsing through it all it looks that the working 20GB ipod I have with Firewire dock can be a solution!

It should be. Put it in "Disk Mode", restore the Tiger DVD or image to it, boot and install away.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Sure about that?

All I can find seems to contradict that. Including several posts here on Macrumors.

There are numerous posts here on MacRumors that confirm what @Amethyst1 has advised. Many of them have been written by me in an effort to pushback against the misinformation that you have encountered.

In this recent thread there are several testimonials with details of members (including myself) successfully installing macOS from USB onto PPC Macs. I have four PPC machines with which I only need insert the USB stick, power up and hold down the Option key to accomplish this.

I'll also concur that you really ought to upgrade the RAM because if you want to obtain the max performance, that won't be possible whilst running Tiger on 256 MB. It'll be a thankless task. The iMac G4/800 can be expanded to 1GB and the memory can found cheaply on eBay.