New Mac Pro: Booting to Tiger

[manualsaur]

Hi there!

I have a question for the congealed wisdom of this forum.

I am waiting on the release of the new Mac Pro - which now looks like January - as I am looking to consolidate all my work onto one machine (I currently game on a separate PC, but write and record music on an old G4 mac).

Anyway, I use protools for recording, and I know that Digidesign won't qualify Leopard or even the new Mac Pro for a while after release. However, I don't want to buy 'qualified' old Mac Pro running Tiger with the weak GFX etc when there's a new one just round the corner. In addition, I'm not in a 'hurry' i.e. this is a hobby so I don't lose money by not upgrading yet.

So, what I'm hoping to do is buy the new Mac Pro in January, and then install tiger on a separate partition, and run protools from that until they qualify leopard.

My worry is that I am unsure the new Mac Pros will boot a Tiger 10.4.9 O/s, and therefore once it arrives, I try, and it fails I might be sitting there with loads of new kit that won't work until Digi choose to release an update!

I appreciate we havent seen the new machines so it's an unknown quantity - but Apple are surely unlikely to release a machine that won't run an earlier version of their own o/s aren't they? I mean, how different is the architecture going to BE in the new Mac Pro?

If anyone has any knowledge or views that might help out it would be appreciated.

Thanks
Manualsaur

 

[ErikAndre]

This is a real good question.

The only true way it will work, I would imagine, is if Apple releases an update (not a .12) that just has the drivers for the new mac pro's MB, penryn processor, etc.. (if not already compatible with previous drivers).

I'm just wondering if Apple would do that, and indirectly imply with a driver update for Tiger that they acknoledge Leopard is not capable of running Pro apps.

Again... this is a real good question.

 

[suneohair]

Chances are with a little modding of the 10.4 disc you can get 10.4 installed. Take a look at the link in my sig, while not directly related to Tiger, the process for modding the installed (minus the xar stuff) would be similar for the tiger disc.

The new machines could have a flag in the EFI such that it doesn't allow anything other than 10.5 I think I saw something similar in the Leopard disc, I will have to take a look. That means you could possibly edit the EFI somehow to remove that flag.

You might have a problem with drivers though. So you may have to copy some over to the installation DVD as well.

It can be done, it may just take some work. You could possibly do a target disk install or a target disk image clone.

This is a real good question.

The only true way it will work, I would imagine, is if Apple releases an update (not a .12) that just has the drivers for the new mac pro's MB, penryn processor, etc.. (if not already compatible with previous drivers).

I'm just wondering if Apple would do that, and indirectly imply with a driver update for Tiger that they acknoledge Leopard is not capable of running Pro apps.

Again... this is a real good question.

You would still have an issue with installing, if the actual installation is blocked. Which, I have seen some reports of machines with Leopard pre-installed not allowing Tiger to be installed.

 

[Blogger]

Usually new Macs are prevented from using earlier versions of the OS.

I also don't think there was ever a retail version of Tiger sold for Intel chipsets. As far as I'm aware it was PPC only. Because all the Intel Macs came out after Tiger was released, they all came with it already installed and on the restore disks, and so none needed the retail version, hence it was never produced.

This has caused a lot of grief for people that have bought intel systems used, without the original software.

So I think you might be out of luck.

 

[Blogger]

Another thought.

I guess your best bet would be to clone Tiger from another Intel Mac (using Target Disk Mode) to a second hard drive in your new Mac Pro, and then try booting from it.

I suppose there's no way of actually knowing if it would work until the new models come out and somebody tries it

 

[rockinrocker]

if you're not in to big a hurry, what about just waiting until protools supports it? i can't imagine that it would be to long since a lot of people use macs for studios.....
sounds like it would save you a lot of hassle....

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Usually new Macs are prevented from using earlier versions of the OS.

This is very true. Not to mention the fact that a new Mac Pro will have all new chipset, video chip, etc; for which there will be no Tiger drivers. It may be *POSSIBLE* to do, but it won't be easy (similar technique used by those who put OS X on generic PCs,) and you'll be missing out performance-wise due to lack of drivers.

Either stick with a current one that can run Tiger, or wait for a Leopard-only model, and go with Leopard. Those are your only two choices, realistically.