Installing Leopard on Power Mac G4

I have a Powermac G4 with a 1.2ghz processor 1.5gb ram. It boots from disk just fine, and lets me select the language. After that it comes up with what looks like the Leopard desktop, and it says, "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer". I have Tiger currently, and it will not let me do the upgrade or a fresh install. I went under System profile, and it shows my processor as a speed of 0 mhz is this the cause or something else?

Thanks for everyones help!

First, are you sure it's a 1.2Ghz G4? If so it should install. Is your Leopard disk a factory DVD?

Ok I just Re Read your post. Is your CPU an Aftermarket upgrade? If so what brand and model?

dtravis7 said:

First, are you sure it's a 1.2Ghz G4? If so it should install. Is your Leopard disk a factory DVD?

Ok I just Re Read your post. Is your CPU an Aftermarket upgrade? If so what brand and model?

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I bought this Mac this weekend, and I am pretty sure it is an upgrade. This is a factory install disc. When I am in "Leopard" I can go under system profiler and under hardware it says "Powermac G4 3.3". I dont know where to physically look to see brand and model on the motherboard.

I just looked under the heatsink and I see a label that says sonnet 1250/2.

By factory install disc do you mean a disc that came with another computer? If so that is a system restore disc and will not install. You need to purchase the full retail install DVD which is plain black colored with no rings.

harryb2448 said:

By factory install disc do you mean a disc that came with another computer? If so that is a system restore disc and will not install. You need to purchase the full retail install DVD which is plain black colored with no rings.

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Sorry that is what I meant. I have the full install Leopard 10.5.

I had this same issue with my G4 Digital Audio and a Giga Designs 1.8Ghz CPU. I had to boot into the Leopard Installer, open the Terminal and type the location to the Enabler Software that came with my CPU. I am sure Sonnet has that same software somewhere. I will see if I can find out what CPU you have and get back to you.

dtravis7 said:

I had this same issue with my G4 Digital Audio and a Giga Designs 1.8Ghz CPU. I had to boot into the Leopard Installer, open the Terminal and type the location to the Enabler Software that came with my CPU. I am sure Sonnet has that same software somewhere. I will see if I can find out what CPU you have and get back to you.

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I really appreciate your help. I am an IT guy, but I have been in no contact with an Apple computer for atleast 13years lol. I have just sparked an interest in transitioning to a Mac, and thats why I started off with this Powermac G4. I only paid $120 for this baby, and it was a steal for others Mac's I saw that had less features and were over $200.

Does your 1.2Ghz Sonnet have a Purple heat sink with a Fan in one end?

Also are there any jumpers or Dip Switches on the Sonnet card?

dtravis7 said:

Does your 1.2Ghz Sonnet have a Purple heat sink with a Fan in one end?

Also are there any jumpers or Dip Switches on the Sonnet card?

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It appears to be an aluminum Foxconn heatsink, and there are no fans that I can see. I am not sure how to remove the heatsink so that I can get a full view of the processor.

I figured out how to remove the heatsink, and I took some pictures of it. Tell mw how I can get them to you.

chadmesse said:

I figured out how to remove the heatsink, and I took some pictures of it. Tell mw how I can get them to you.

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When you post here click on advanced and you can attach pics to the message, but it they are over a certain size limit, you will have to put them on a hosting site and link to them.

heres a pic

Hang in there. I have found the software now trying to figure out how you can load it from the terminal using the Leopard DVD.

If you would download this software and I will see what I can figure out.
This is what they recomend if the speed is being reported wrong or Zero Mhz.


http://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/software/sonnetcache14.pkg.zip

I was reading the "ReadMe" file, and I think this might be impossible for me. I have a bare drive, and no way to get this file to the mac. Would this be possible from an external or a thumdrive possibly?

chadmesse said:

I was reading the "ReadMe" file, and I think this might be impossible for me. I have a bare drive, and no way to get this file to the mac. Would this be possible from an external or a thumdrive possibly?

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That is what I am trying to figure out. Am going to try it all on my upgraded Digital Audio and see if I can find a way in terminal from the 10.5 DVD and see if I can load it from a flash drive or something else.

Will let you know what I figure out.

Thanks! I am out for tonight, but will check in the morning. I really do appreciate all the help you are giving to a dumb Windows guy lol.

This is the error I am receiving "

-bash-3.2# `kextload /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext
> `kextload /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext
kextload: /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext: no such bundle file exists
can't add kernel extension /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext (file access/permissions) (run kextload on this kext with -t for diagnostic output)
kextload: /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext: no such bundle file exists
can't add kernel extension /Volumes/usb/System/Library/Extensions/SonnetCache.kext (file access/permissions) (run kextload on this kext with -t for diagnostic output)
-bash-3.2#

I will see what I can find out for you.

I tried to upgrade to 10.5 with no luck. "Harry" even tried to help with suggestions and it came up a bust.

I have a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth. I upgrade the Processor to a Sonnet 1.8, maxed out the Ram to I believe 2GB (whatever the max capacity is).

I have a complete install 10.5 disc(s). I have 3 individual 10.5 Full Retail discs. Tried all 3. All 3 failed. They would come close to about 90% installed then Error out. It would also crap the drive. So then I would have to use a retrieval program to collect the files I just lost.

It was a big nightmare.

Anthony a complete set of Leopard discs spells problems as the full retail install DVD came on a single Dual Layer disc. Sure you have not got the silver/grey model specific discs?

Also used a Mercury Extreme CPU upgrade from OWC to install Leopard on a 500MHz DP Gigabit Ethernet G4. There was a trick about setting the jumpers to make sure it matched the 100mHz/133MHz system bus speeds of the G4's.