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Tiger Install on 300Mhz Clamshell via Network?

ITASOR

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
Hey everyone,

Feeling adventurous today and would like to try and install Tiger on my clamshell. I've thought of 2 ways I could do it:

1. Network install from iBook G4...mount clamshell's HD and install to that after booting from Tiger disk? I need more info on how to do this.

2. Could take my external USB 2.0 HD and install Tiger on it from my iBook (or Panther...whatever, doesn't matter). Then I could make a disk image of my Tiger DVD and put it on the external HD as well (say, in the documents folder or wherever). Then, I could boot the clamshell off the USB HD (would boot from Tiger) and edit the OSInstall.dist in the Tiger disk image (remove the PowerBook 2,1 line which is under badmachines telling it not to install on it. Then, I could just launch the OSInstall.mpkg and choose to install to the internal HD of the clamshell.

Obviously I know more about #2, but I think it would be quicker to do a network install. Anyone have more info about that?

My clamshell has 544MB RAM, so it should run great....little worried about trying to get the install down to fit on the 3GB HD though...perhaps without any printer drivers, languages, etc. it would fit. Anyone get it below 3GB? Right now, I have a clean Panther install with printer drivers but no languages taking around 2GB leaving me with 700MB or so free (remember, 3GB HD isn't really 3). I just use this computer for iChat/Safari/Clamshell has a handle coolness reasons, nothing serious. I stream all iTunes music from my iBook, so having around 500MB HD space left after installation is no problem.


I would rather do a network install because I don't feel like formatting my USB Maxtor to OS X Extended, wait for the installation of Tiger onto it, and then have to put all my backups back on it when I'm done. :(

Any advice?
 
CubaTBird said:
why is that? i have always wanted to know...
Click to expand...

It won't fail. You have to edit the OSInstall.dist file and remove the line that corresponds to your machine under "badMachines". In my case, the iBook 300Mhz is the PowerBook 2,1. Removing that line allows the OS to install.

Mac's will boot from USB drives, it's just not widely known, or a very smart way to do it. It's extremely slow and you get the beach ball every 10 seconds. However, it would be OK enough to do an install of Tiger from.

EDIT: To answer CubaTBird's question...I guess they feel the computer that are old enough to not have shipped with Firewire are too old to handle the OS. I've always had the impression that they're just using the firewire requirement to narrow down the computers that can handle Tiger when properly configured.
 
CubaTBird said:
why is that? i have always wanted to know...
Click to expand...
From Xpostfactos Website
Generally speaking, what XPostFacto does is the following:


Installs the kernel extensions needed for Mac OS X to run on unsupported systems.
Installs a startup item.
Installs a modified version of BootX.
Installs an NVRAM patch.
Figures out the NVRAM settings required to boot or install.
Tells the computer to restart.
Click to expand...
 
Just an update on this, as I finally have a few minutes to get this project started.

I took a Maxtor 120GB USB2.0 HD and partitioned it two ways. One for my files (which I'll put back on later) and one for OS X.

The clamshell is installing Panther right now onto the external USB HD. Once that's finished, I'll make a disk image of the Tiger DVD and put it on the external HD as well. I'll edit the osinstall.dist file to tell it to install on a clamshell OK. Then, I'll launch the Tiger installer from the DMG and pick the clamshell's internal HD to install to.

Right now it's booting from the panther CD and taking it's sweet little time (boy clamshell CD drives are slow!).

I'll keep you up-to-date on how it's going! Can't wait to start using this with Tiger.

UPDATE: instead of booting from the panther installer, it booted to single user mode instead...wtf...retrying the startup with C held down again!

UPDATE 2: Ahh crap, my Panther CD is on it's way out, it's not working super great in any drive. I'm using my dual disc copier to make a copy of it right now, hopefully the new one will be good as new.

UPDATE 3: New Panther CD done, clamshell booted right up from it so I guess the other disc went bad...never had a CD go bad on me before. thank goodness for my cd copier! Now I'm going to try and install to the external HD...more updates to come!
 
Good luck with installing that.

If macs can boot to USB I did not know that. You should probably put that in a guide so that others may take advantage of that.
 
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