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imac g4 leopard install-gone awry

N

nearlycomplete

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 15, 2011
19
0
Anaheim, Ca
Ok after mulling through forums and google searches I finally purchased leopard retail. here are some of the issues i encountered:

-g4 wont read dvd...for some reason
-tried to mount a firewire drive and install the OS but G4 wouldnt boot from harrdive
-tried remote install, but i think that requires a newer version os X ( G4 was at 10.3.9)

so finally i connected the imac to my macbook via firewire and put the drive into target disk mode. and low and behold through disk utilities i managed to wipe the drive and install leopard.

before i could do that it made me reformat the imac drive to a GUID partition. and once it finished it rebooted my macbook and took me through the Leopard into video and asked my info.

However once i unmounted my imac and turned it on, it gave me question mark folder, cant find the harddrive and i have NO IDEA what to do.... i hope this wasnt too long, but i could really use some help.
 
nearlycomplete said:
Ok after mulling through forums and google searches I finally purchased leopard retail. here are some of the issues i encountered:

-g4 wont read dvd...for some reason
-tried to mount a firewire drive and install the OS but G4 wouldnt boot from harrdive
-tried remote install, but i think that requires a newer version os X ( G4 was at 10.3.9)

so finally i connected the imac to my macbook via firewire and put the drive into target disk mode. and low and behold through disk utilities i managed to wipe the drive and install leopard.

before i could do that it made me reformat the imac drive to a GUID partition. and once it finished it rebooted my macbook and took me through the Leopard into video and asked my info.

However once i unmounted my imac and turned it on, it gave me question mark folder, cant find the harddrive and i have NO IDEA what to do.... i hope this wasnt too long, but i could really use some help.
Click to expand...

Hi, what G4 do you have? Did you inspect the dvd for any scratches or problems? Usually, when you run the OS installer you will encounter the DVD check to insure that the disc is in working order. Sounds like some of your install got messed up possibly due to a bad disc or something of which interfered with the installer.

Is the Leopard retail disc a brand new one or used? As to your G4 model, this will help as some early models of the G4 didn't come with a dual layer DVD drive. I am assuming yours has one. But, at this stage I am willing to bed it might be a corrupt disc.
 
well the disc opens in my macbook, so i know the disc is fine.

I managed to run the panther install disc and get disk utilities open, and found it wont let me mount the drive. When i searched through some of the apple support forums i ran across the fact that my hard drive could be toast... being its several years old

as for the model, im not sure i think g4 were differentiated by there processor speed, mine is 1.2 GHz. oh and it doesnt read DL discs i discovered... im assuming 10.5 is a dl? (thank god for the edit button on here lol)
 
stroked said:
I have seen people confuse Leopard with Snow Leopard. Are you sure you have Leopard 10.5?
Click to expand...


Screenshot2011-03-25at122719AM.png


this is what the harddrive looks like when i have it in target disk mode. 10.5 is the imac g4. 10.6 is my macbook....
 
yeah mate it wont boot from guid (thats for X86).. youll need to reformatt before installing to apple partition..
 
hello dont be confused ,
at the moment you try to install leopard on the iMac's harddrive but your MacBook thinks the iMac is a external harddrive connected to it ,and thats why it is asking for GUID , but it should be the other way round
your iMac has to think the optical drive of your MacBook is a external optical drive , so you need to put the MacBook in target disc mode not the iMac G4 and then it will let you format in APM
 
Mac hamster is correct. Either do what he said or do it the way you first tried but with another ppc not an intel machine.
 
skinniezinho said:
use your macbook, with carbon copy cloner and an external enclosure for the powermac hdd...
I did this way.
Click to expand...

yes that is what i did! and it worked! and i even got to bed by 3 am haha (persistence)

although i did realize inretrospect that i could have target disk[ed] my macbook and used the DVD drive, and that may have been easier. but i got the same result! yay! :D
 
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