I am in the process of buying a hard drive for a PowerMac G4 that i just purchased. The computer doesn't have a DVD drive, just a CD. I have a copy of Tiger that could be installed but I would need a DVD drive. Would I be better off buying a cheap copy of Panther online somewhere and just using that, or buying a DVD drive and installing Tiger? Or finding another way to install one or the other on my Mac? Any suggestions?
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What to do, install Panther, or Tiger?
- Thread starter derekblock
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A DVD drive is likely to be cheaper than a copy of Panther, and more useful in the long run. Panther is not compatible with the later versions of either Safari or Firefox, so you will likely run into problems trying to use it to browse the web (a pretty basic operation, so I assume someone critical). I wouldn't recommend using anything older than Tiger if you have the choice.
jW
jW
If you have another mac - use it to make a small partition on the disk (Apple Part Map say 8GB) and in Disk Utility 'restore' the Tiger disk to it.
Then put the new disk in the G4 and boot (pretty much what I did last night on mine as I had no blank DVD's handy)
that should let you use the partitioner in the Install to put Tigger on it - then after first boot you can remove the partition you made (personally I keep a 15GB one and CCC the OS drive to it from time to time; in case I or anyone else messes up the boot).
Then put the new disk in the G4 and boot (pretty much what I did last night on mine as I had no blank DVD's handy)
that should let you use the partitioner in the Install to put Tigger on it - then after first boot you can remove the partition you made (personally I keep a 15GB one and CCC the OS drive to it from time to time; in case I or anyone else messes up the boot).