Installing Leopard from External HD on iBook G4 14"

[griffinthecity]

hello everyone!
nice to be a part of macrumors.

just here to ask one simple question:

i put leopard's OS X install dvd on my western digital passort 250gb external hard drive.
i plugged it into my ibook, recognized it as a OS X install dvd. i could click it and it can give me the option to restart my computer in order for the installation to begin. the thing is, it stops me and tells me to boot from the installation CD instead.

i'm just doing a little experimentation, but is it true that PowerPCs need Firewire external HD's in order to startup from it?

i also tried using 'startup disk' to restart from the external hd. no luck, it gives me that error sound (the sound in system prefs. says it's called 'funk').
so yeah, it gave me the funk sound. haha.

but i just want to know how else i can install leopard. my optical drive is totally messed up, and my iBook unexpectedly kernel panics at the wrong moments: usually when i install 10.4.11 from the software update or when i restart the computer and it's unable to book from the grey screen or the blue screen or even when it shows the desktop then suddenly kernels.

i love this machine, and i want to revive it somehow. any suggestions, comments? all is welcome. thank you very much!

-griffin

 

[BlueRevolution]

i'm just doing a little experimentation, but is it true that PowerPCs need Firewire external HD's in order to startup from it?

Yes.

but i just want to know how else i can install leopard. my optical drive is totally messed up, and my iBook unexpectedly kernel panics at the wrong moments: usually when i install 10.4.11 from the software update or when i restart the computer and it's unable to book from the grey screen or the blue screen or even when it shows the desktop then suddenly kernels.

That's more likely to be a matter of hardware than software, but it's certainly possible to (re)install OS X in your situation.

There are a bunch of possibilities that are running through my head, but they all entail FireWire connections. I think the easiest way would be to connect your computer to another Mac in target disk mode and use Disk Utility on that Mac to partition the iBook's hard drive into two partitions. The first should be left empty for the time being, while the Leopard disk image should be restored to the second partition, again using Disk Utility.

Now you don't need the other Mac anymore. Boot the iBook while holding down the option key; a menu should appear with your new OS X install partition listed. That should behave exactly like a Leopard install DVD. Install to the first partition on your drive, the one you left blank earlier on. Now, Disk Utility on Leopard can dynamically partition its own drive without restarting. It's very cool. Once you have Leopard up and running to your satisfaction, you can delete the second partition and resize your boot partition to fill the entire drive. Then again, if you can spare the space and don't want to go through the whole process again, you might want to just leave the installer there.

I don't know what your iBook's specs are like, but Leopard does require at least an 867 MHz G4 processor and 512 MB of memory. Might want to bear that in mind if you're a little short on the speed.

 

[griffinthecity]

whoa, thanks man, that was very thorough. i got 1.25 GB ram and 1.3 Mhz and a 30GB hard drive (don't ask, so tiny!)

hahaha.

and so, can't i partition that drive, install tiger on the larger drive with the cd it came with, transfer the leopard .dmg file onto the desktop, then restore it to the partition? i think that might work... if it does, i, sir, shall give you tremendous props for the idea =]

 

[griffinthecity]

oh, and may i add that the drive on my ibook only works if it's the original panther/tiger dvds, for some odd reason. hmm...