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Panther on New iMac?

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xenolite

macrumors newbie
Original poster
so while my girlfriend is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new 20" iMac, we've got a question. assuming that the machine comes with tiger preinstalled, would there be any problem with wiping the hard drive clean and installing panther from the install disks that came with my iBook G4? i've read varying opinions on these boards in the past about machine specific OS install disks.

if anyone cares, the only reason we'd want to do this is so she can run ProTools on it. PT isn't releasing their tiger compatible patch until sometime in june.
 
thanks...yeah i am talking about the system restore and software install disks. just for my own edification, can someone explain why it wouldn't work?
 
xenolite said:
thanks...yeah i am talking about the system restore and software install disks. just for my own edification, can someone explain why it wouldn't work?
Click to expand...

Those disks will check to make sure they are for the exact model of computer they were ment for before they allow you to install.
 
really? i know this is unsanctioned and all...but i used them previously to install panther on an old iMac G3 i used to have. everything seemed to work perfectly.
 
xenolite said:
really? i know this is unsanctioned and all...but i used them previously to install panther on an old iMac G3 i used to have. everything seemed to work perfectly.
Click to expand...

All I can say is that they aren't supposed to work. You got lucky, try it again. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
 
Why would you do this? Why not take advantage of the newest operating system on such a great computer? Tiger is brilliant, and the new iMac is brilliant. Enjoy them together!

June is not far off!!
 
powerbook911 said:
Why would you do this? Why not take advantage of the newest operating system on such a great computer? Tiger is brilliant, and the new iMac is brilliant. Enjoy them together!
Click to expand...

Read the thread:
xenolite said:
if anyone cares, the only reason we'd want to do this is so she can run ProTools on it. PT isn't releasing their tiger compatible patch until sometime in june.
Click to expand...

Edit: That line "june is not far off" was not there when I first posted this. But even so, why waste a month when you could be creating music?
 
You could get an external hard disc and load Panther on that? They are not that expensive. That will get you up and running in the short term. Keep Tiger on the internal hard disc. When the ProTools update comes out then revert back to Tiger. You can then use the external hard disc as a dedicated backup disc or even as a scratch disc if you are doing heavy audio editing???? Not used ProTools B4, but audio editing will take up a lot of space.

Problem solved.

You know if you wipe Tiger and install Panther you'll get everything setup and wish you were using Tiger as people are singing its praises. The 10.4.1 patch will be out which should hopefully iron out some of the bugs people have reported.

Do you want to go through the hassle of an OS upgrade, as people have reported bugs when upgrading and not doing a clean install.

Just my thoughts.

I have Tiger installed on the internal disc of my iMac and a backup copy of Panther on an external drive. If there is a programme that won't work under Tiger I can easily boot into Panther and use it there.
 
skp574 said:
You could get an external hard disc and load Panther on that? They are not that expensive. That will get you up and running in the short term. Keep Tiger on the internal hard disc. When the ProTools update comes out then revert back to Tiger. You can then use the external hard disc as a dedicated backup disc or even as a scratch disc if you are doing heavy audio editing???? Not used ProTools B4, but audio editing will take up a lot of space.

Problem solved.
Click to expand...

Problem not solved. The problem isn't "where to install Panther", rather "How to install Panther".
 
grapes911 said:
Problem not solved. The problem isn't "where to install Panther", rather "How to install Panther".
Click to expand...

Boot from the install CD, select the external drive as the location. No?
 
grapes911 said:
What install CD?
Click to expand...


xenolite said:
... would there be any problem with wiping the hard drive clean and installing panther from the install disks that came with my iBook G4? i've read varying opinions on these boards in the past about machine specific OS install disks.
Click to expand...

That's if they will install on an iMac. If not then yes I agree 'what install discs'.

You'd have to get a boxed copy of Panther and install that. Me thinks you won't find many of those around at the moment.

It seems a lot of hassle if you ask me. They should just wait for the update in June.

Problem now solved. 😛
 
skp574 said:
That's if they will install on an iMac. If not then yes I agree 'what install discs'.
Click to expand...
As said before, they are made to install only on the model they came with. It probably won't work.

It seems a lot of hassle if you ask me. They should just wait for the update in June.

Problem now solved. 😛
Click to expand...
Not to sound rude, but nothing you said answered the original question.
 
FWIW, I was able to install panther on an external firewire drive with the restore discs that came with my Powerbook, and use that drive to boot an iBook G3 (with Jaguar installed on the internal HD) into Panther. I had no problems whatsoever doing so. I'm not sure about using the iMac to install Panther on the external drive, but you should be able to use the iBook to install Panther on the firewire drive, and then connect the firewire drive to the new iMac and boot from it. If you want to install it on the internal drive, you could try booting it into firewire target disk mode and then using the iBook to install Panther onto the iMac's drive. I'm not sure if that will work, but it seems like it might.
 
Isn't it impossible to install any version of Mac OS older than what shipped with the machine?
 
grapes911 said:
As said before, they are made to install only on the model they came with. It probably won't work.

Not to sound rude, but nothing you said answered the original question.
Click to expand...

Sorry to quote myself but...

skp574 said:
You could get an external hard disc and load Panther on that? They are not that expensive. That will get you up and running in the short term. Keep Tiger on the internal hard disc. When the ProTools update comes out then revert back to Tiger. You can then use the external hard disc as a dedicated backup disc or even as a scratch disc if you are doing heavy audio editing???? Not used ProTools B4, but audio editing will take up a lot of space.

Problem solved.

You know if you wipe Tiger and install Panther you'll get everything setup and wish you were using Tiger as people are singing its praises. The 10.4.1 patch will be out which should hopefully iron out some of the bugs people have reported.

Do you want to go through the hassle of an OS upgrade, as people have reported bugs when upgrading and not doing a clean install.

Just my thoughts.

I have Tiger installed on the internal disc of my iMac and a backup copy of Panther on an external drive. If there is a programme that won't work under Tiger I can easily boot into Panther and use it there.
Click to expand...


I thought that was a pretty good attempt at some good advice 😛 . It's where the Panther disc comes from that seems to be the sticking point here. As you say if a recovery disc for one model won't install on another model then they've got to get a full version. That's if that is the route they want to go down.

It would seem, to me, to be a lot of hassle. However, if they HAVE to use ProTools now and money is not an object then my I would have thought my advice would have been a good avenue to take.

If there is a better way of doing it, then I have my ear trumpet at the ready.
 
skp574 said:
I thought that was a pretty good attempt at some good advice 😛 . It's where the Panther disc comes from that seems to be the sticking point here. As you say if a recovery disc for one model won't install on another model then they've got to get a full version. That's if that is the route they want to go down.

It would seem, to me, to be a lot of hassle. However, if they HAVE to use ProTools now and money is not an object then my I would have thought my advice would have been a good avenue to take.

If there is a better way of doing it, then I am willing to listen.
Click to expand...

But the OP didn't ask how to boot two OS's with one computer (you did do a good job of answering this question if it were the question). They asked if you could use the ibook disks to install on an iMac.
 
I asked about this a while ago but was pooh -poohed by someone. So is it possible? Can I install Panther onto another drive and upgrade to Tiger? And is it possible to install Panther onto an external drive and boot from there? This isn't dodgy I have 2 copies of Panther
 
thanks everyone. i think we'll just keep tiger on the iMac and use my iBook running panther for ProTools until digidesign releases the PT update. we'll try panther on the external drive route if we're in a pinch.

now if the damn computer would only get here...
 
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