Installing two OS's on one Mac

Hello. I haven't posted anything here is a long time but, I was just wondering since I have it....is it possible to install OS X 10.3 Panther along side 10.4 Tiger? (eMac G4, 800MHz, 40 GB HD, 512 MB Ram, CD-ROM drive, etc......) I was just curious because I have an eMac-only Panther install disk, and I have an eMac with Tiger, but I don't don't want to get rid of Tiger, but want to try out Panther, so I was just wondering if a dual-boot was possible. Thanks! (A full, correct answer within 24 hours of now would be appreciated, thank you!)

If you want to install Panther alongside tiger on your emac you will have to repartition your emac's hard drive. Tiger's disk utility can't repartition a disk without destroying all of the data on the disk. Luckily, I see that you have an iMac with Leopard. The best way to repartition your emac would be to restart it in target disk mode by going into system preferences, selecting startup disk and clicking target disk mode. Then connect the two computers via firewire. On the iMac go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. In disk utility, select your emac's hard drive on the left and then click the partition tab on the upper right of the window. Push the + button close to the bottom of the window. There will now be two boxes. Drag the dividers between the boxes to make the partition whatever size you want. You can rename the new partition if you want to. Then all you have to do is click apply! Leopard does not reformat the drive when you repartition this way. I would still make a backup just incase. Now you can startup the emac from the Panther disk. The new partition will show up as a separate hard drive in the installer. Select it as your destination and you're good to go! After Panther is installed on the second partition, you can hold option at the startup chime when you boot up your computer to choose between tiger and panther, or you can go to system preferences and select startup disk. Good luck!

Hawky said:

(A full, correct answer within 24 hours of now would be appreciated, thank you!)

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Send $20 dollars, and a "full correct answer" can be had MUCH sooner than 24 hours!

Free (but still very helpful) answers may sometimes take a little longer!

- Nick

Give Panther a miss as it is too old. Tiger will do everything Panther can do, and more.

Pardon moi, but I use Panther regularly ;D and it works flawlessly - but I have to add that it's on a G3 iMac, which would struggle with Tiger. Yes, Tiger has more features, like Spotlight (which I seldom use) and Dictionary (which I use repeatedly).

'Horses for courses' is a good guide. If you seriously want to use Panther, and rather than go through the partitioning process, put it on another computer. A G3 iMac for example, or an early eMac, is a cheap, sometimes free, item in the US.