Power Mac G4 10.5 Reinstall

[neil1980]

A friend of mine at work was given a Power Mac G4 by another friend not too long ago which was used by his old company.

To cut a long story short he has this G4 Power Mac but doesn't know the Admin password and doesn't have the discs to restore it.

Seeing as I'd been banging on at how good macs were he's given it to me to try and sort... as its got a lot of software on it and the password problem he ideally wants me to wipe it, stick 10.5 back on so he has a fresh install and knows the password.

Now the question is.... (and I think this is a long shot so thats why I'm asking) is it possible to use the OS X disc that came with my macbook to install 10.5 onto the G4?

My matchbooks running 10.6 now but originally had 10.5 but I'm wondering if there would be any issues with drivers etc?

I assume there wouldn't be any licensing issues with this as it was all done legit through the company that previously owned it before it went bump

 

[Bennieboy©]

the install disc that came with your macbook is machine specific, it wont work to install on the G4, what spec is the G4, some of the early ones wont support 10.5, your best bet is find a retail disc for 10.5 and use that

the minimum systems reqs for 10.5 are
867Mhz G4 cpu
1Gb ram,
and at least 10-15 Gb free space on the HD

 

[neil1980]

Thanks for the quick reply.... thought it might be specific due to the drivers... bugger.


Yeah it definitely supports 10.5 as its currently sat down stairs... I've only had chance to plug it in and boot it up so far but it says 10.5.7 in about this mac and it has time machine so it deffo supports it.

Was just reading about target mode but that wouldn't work between PPC and Intel machines apparently plus I'd have the hassle of installing 10.5 back on mine doing it and then sticking 10.6 back and restoring it.

From the sound of it the CD/DVD is no more as the company went bust which is how I assume he got it cheap.

I guess the only way round it is to remove the software thats already on there and I found some guide on the net for changing admin passwords

 

[neil1980]

Just read what you put properly and see what you mean about using a retail dvd instead of the restore one.

Good thinking!

 

[Bennieboy©]

target disc mode wont work either, PPC architecture and intel are totally different unless you can get a 10.5 universal ( not sure they ever made them )

i have heard about OS's being installed from USB sticks, not sure if that would apply here,

if the dvd drive is knackered, you'll need a firewire dvd drive to install it, it wont install from usb external, alternatively you should be able to find some old G4 drives on ebay for not lots of money

 

[neil1980]

As far as I'm aware the drive works (I hope so or its even more hassle)

Hopefully should be easy enough if I can find a retail disc... otherwise the real fun will begin

 

[Bennieboy©]

yeah retail 10.5 discs are fetching a premium right now on ebay but look about on craigslists and you should be able to find something good, FYI retail discs are Black, machine discs are grey just to be safe

 

[neil1980]

ahh cool, yeah my macbook one is grey

Why did I think this was going to be a job I could do in an evening lol