New iMac Owner - New To Mac !

[MacMeister]

Hi Guys/Girls

I have recently inherited a silver/clear slot loading iMac G3 (500Mhz/128MB Ram/30GB HD) primarily to use with my iPod - keeping iTunes/music on there.

At the moment its running OS 9 - which is fine but will not let me install iTunes. As i'm new to Macs I guess that I need to upgrade the OS.

I would like to know if its possible to upgrade to Tiger with this machine and if possible wondered if anyone could give me (simplified/step-by-step) instuctions on how to do it. (Remember, i'm new to this game!)

If this has already been covered somewhere else on the site or forum please accept my apologies !

Thanks in advance for everone's help - off now to get a copy of Tiger.

Thanks

Scott

 

[john1123]

Tiger needs both a DVD drive (CD version is available for an extra $15?) and firewire. There are ways around these restrictions though, if you have another mac.

If you do want to install tiger, i suggest you upgrade your RAM. 128MB just doesn't cut it anymore. 256MB is the absolute minimum, 512MB is recommended.

As for the installation of Tiger, i'm not sure since i never used OS9. I guess just put in the DVD (or CD), hold 'C' during startup and follow the instructions. You will probably have to do an Erase and install - meaning that the whole HD will be wiped - so i suggest backing up all your important documents onto your iPod before the Tiger install.

Good Luck!

 

[robbieduncan]

You don't say if the iMac has FireWire (I think it probably does) or whether it has a CD or DVD drive (we only care about read capabilities).

Tiger requries a Mac with FiewWire to be installed (officially, there are probably ways to get it to install on older Macs). Also all retail copies of Tiger are DVD only. You can send off to Apple to get CDs after buying a copy (yes even if you buy online from Apple).

If you have a FireWire port and a DVD drive then we are almost ready to go. You need more RAM. No really. 256Mb should be considered enough to boot Tiger, 512Mb is usable. Unless you have a small amount of music you will want more than 30Gb of disk as well. My music collection is approaching 30Gb at the moment and is not the biggest! You could use an external disk as upgrading the harddrive in an iMac is not easy.

Assuming you get this far and want to continue then you:

0) Backup ALL your data. You never know (and keep doing this).
1) Open the box and put the DVD in the drive.
2) Reboot the Mac holding down C.
3) Follow the onscreen instructions. You might want to customise the install
to remove some things if you have not upgraded the disk.

 

[MacMeister]

Thanks Guys

I have a DVD drive & also Built in Firewire - so that shouldnt be a problem.

However like you say I do need some more RAM - is this just standard DDR ram or do Macs use a specific kind ?

Thanks

Scott

 

[robbieduncan]

Thanks Guys

I have a DVD drive & also Built in Firewire - so that shouldnt be a problem.

However like you say I do need some more RAM - is this just standard DDR ram or do Macs use a specific kind ?

Thanks

Scott

For a Mac of that age it's probably standard SDRAM (not DDR).

I'm struggling to find your iMac at everymac but it looks like you want PC100 SDRAM.

 

[MacMeister]

Looking at everymac mine is the iMac DV SE "500" 500 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) in Snow.

As you suggested it is PC100 SDRAM i need - off to hunt some down.

Thanks for all the help.

Scott

 

[robbieduncan]

Looking at everymac mine is the iMac DV SE "500" 500 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) in Snow.

As you suggested it is PC100 SDRAM i need - off to hunt some down.

Thanks for all the help.

Scott

OK. I though the "silver" description might mean a graphite one, but they only came in 600s! Good luck finding the RAM!