Just picked up a used mac...

Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hey guys, im still new to this whole mac thing...
i just picked up a used mac pro... 1.83 dual core 2 gig memory... the machine is in great shape, matter of face im typing this on it now... lol
i have 2 questions im hoping someone can help me with...

1- i want to update from tiger to snow leopard. can i use any snow leopard instal disc to do this? my brother has a mac with snow leopard, can i use his install disc on mine??

2- i plugged in a hd via usb that i use all the time on a pc. it holds my music (im a dj) the mac says there is a problem and wants to go through this whole process of repairing the drive. should i let the mac do this? will it affect my music files when i use the hd on a pc again??

thanks in advance for the help...
 

cwa107


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
27,042
Reaction score
812
Points
113
Location
Lake Mary, Florida
Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
1. It must be a retail copy of Snow Leopard ($30). Your brother's is likely a restore disc and those are tailored to the machine they're sold with.

2) What is the exact dialog? Most likely that external HD is formatted in NTFS. Although the Mac can read that file system, you'll need an aftermarket driver to write to it. I'd be really surprised if the Mac could repair it, are you sure it's not prompting to "initialize"?

Before you do anything with it, I'd connect it back to your Windows machine and run a disk check. You can do this by right-clicking the drive in My Computer, click Properties, under Error Checking, click "Check Now" and allow Windows to make any repairs it suggests. When finished, eject the drive from My Computer, by right-clicking on it and choosing "Eject". Then you can safely disconnect the drive without risking damage to the file structure.
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
@cwa - thanks for the quick response... So i can go to the apple store buy the 30 dollar snow leopard disc and upgrade my os x 10.4.11 straight to snow leopard??? Wow...

Ill do the disc check now and see what happens... Thanks again
 

cwa107


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
27,042
Reaction score
812
Points
113
Location
Lake Mary, Florida
Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
@cwa - thanks for the quick response... So i can go to the apple store buy the 30 dollar snow leopard disc and upgrade my os x 10.4.11 straight to snow leopard??? Wow...

Ill do the disc check now and see what happens... Thanks again

Apple officially recommends the "Mac Boxed Set" for people who are upgrading from Tiger. This gets you iLife '09 as well as iWork '09. It runs about $170.

With that said, you can technically upgrade using the $30 upgrade for Leopard owners.

Make sure that machine has at least 1GB of RAM before you consider the upgrade. I'd actually recommend you bump it up to 2GB (which should cost you less than $50 from Crucial.com).
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Ok wait hold up, so can i or cant i upgrade to snow leopard from tiger with the 30 buck disc???

Also i plugged in the external to the right side of the machine and it was read with no problem... When i plug it in on the left side usb i get an erroe code saying "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer" then gives the option to initialize / ignore/ or eject
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
25,564
Reaction score
486
Points
83
Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Tell us what model you have as Mac Pro's did not come in the 1.83GHz processor format. Imacs and Minis did however.
 

cwa107


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
27,042
Reaction score
812
Points
113
Location
Lake Mary, Florida
Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Ok wait hold up, so can i or cant i upgrade to snow leopard from tiger with the 30 buck disc???

You can. It's just that Apple doesn't want you to. The $30 upgrade is intended for those coming from 10.5. Does it work for those coming from 10.4? Yes.

Also i plugged in the external to the right side of the machine and it was read with no problem... When i plug it in on the left side usb i get an erroe code saying "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer" then gives the option to initialize / ignore/ or eject

That is odd. Not sure why it would make a difference which port was used.
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
@cwa - yea thats wild... I did the error check on the pc laptop and nothing was found... I bought this mbp to use for serato, a dj-ing program. It would really suck if i bought this for nothing...

@ harry... Yea man im typing on it now... 1.83 dual core 2 gig ddr2 ram...

By the way, can anyone tell me if i can upgrde the ram on this machine??
But anyway, more importantly...i need this external to work! Please
 

cwa107


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
27,042
Reaction score
812
Points
113
Location
Lake Mary, Florida
Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Sounds like it's working on the right side of the machine. Is there a reason you can't use it there?

As far as the memory goes, 2GB is the limit for that particular model. It's a bit long in the tooth at this point (4 years old) and is not 64-bit capable.
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
@ cwa - thanks for the help thus far...
I need 2 ports minimum... 1 for the audio interface and one for my external... I would like it if all ports worked the same
 

cwa107


Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
27,042
Reaction score
812
Points
113
Location
Lake Mary, Florida
Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
@ cwa - thanks for the help thus far...
I need 2 ports minimum... 1 for the audio interface and one for my external... I would like it if all ports worked the same

You may need to get a hub of some sort. Kinda sounds like there's an issue with that port from a hardware perspective.
 
C

chas_m

Guest
Apple officially recommends the "Mac Boxed Set" for people who are upgrading from Tiger. This gets you iLife '09 as well as iWork '09. It runs about $170.

With that said, you can technically upgrade using the $30 upgrade for Leopard owners.

And just to make this absolutely clear, the $30 disc works but DOES NOT include the iLife 09 apps (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and Garageband). If you don't need those apps, then fine -- but personally I find them to be THE compelling reason to use a Mac over a PC so I recommend you get the Box Set (not to mention that the iWork apps are SWEET).
 
Joined
Jan 19, 2008
Messages
4,695
Reaction score
73
Points
48
Location
houston texas
Your Mac's Specs
09 MBP 8GB ram 500GB HD OS 10.9 32B iPad 4 32GB iPhone 5 iOs7 2TB TC Apple TV3
And just to make this absolutely clear, the $30 disc works but DOES NOT include the iLife 09 apps (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and Garageband). If you don't need those apps, then fine -- but personally I find them to be THE compelling reason to use a Mac over a PC so I recommend you get the Box Set (not to mention that the iWork apps are SWEET).

I'll agree with that great bang for the buck.
 

tjb


Joined
Aug 14, 2010
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
you may also want to make sure that its actually a pro and not a G5 before you spend the money.. i was considering getting a G5 until i found out that you cant put snow leopard on one.
 

dtravis7


Retired Staff
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
30,133
Reaction score
703
Points
113
Location
Modesto, Ca.
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
@cwa - yea thats wild... I did the error check on the pc laptop and nothing was
@ harry... Yea man im typing on it now... 1.83 dual core 2 gig ddr2 ram...

Reason harry is questioning you is you once called it a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro is a LARGE full size tower desktop machine. You have a Macbook Pro which is a Laptop.
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
reason harry is questioning you is you once called it a mac pro. A mac pro is a large full size tower desktop machine. You have a macbook pro which is a laptop.


oooo ok my fault... Again still a newbie... It is a macbook pro...

Sorry about the mixup
 
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
and just to make this absolutely clear, the $30 disc works but does not include the ilife 09 apps (iphoto, imovie, idvd and garageband). If you don't need those apps, then fine -- but personally i find them to be the compelling reason to use a mac over a pc so i recommend you get the box set (not to mention that the iwork apps are sweet).


understood... My interest in it is mainly for my dj program (serato) and photoshop... I really wont be using it for anything else... Except maybe putting vlc player on it to watch the occasional movie... It would just be nice to have the current os
 
Joined
Apr 9, 2009
Messages
2,073
Reaction score
68
Points
48
Location
Ithaca NY
Your Mac's Specs
13 inch alMacBook 2GHz C2D 4G DDR3, 1.25GHz G4 eMac
Considering the specs of the machine, this sounds like a Power Mac G5, not a Mac Pro. So, no. You won't be able to upgrade to snow leopard.
 
Joined
Apr 9, 2009
Messages
2,073
Reaction score
68
Points
48
Location
Ithaca NY
Your Mac's Specs
13 inch alMacBook 2GHz C2D 4G DDR3, 1.25GHz G4 eMac
OP
S
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hey guys... So here is what i did...
I played with it for a day, wasnt real happy with the specs... So i sold it the next day and made 50 bux xtra on it... Took that money and found a 15in. Mbp that has way better specs.. 2.33 core 2 duo / 2 gig ram / 160 hd and had snow leopard on it...battery power is nice... It isnt as clean as the 1st one (the 1st was minty) there are a couple scratches from bracelets she (1st owner) wares but other than that no issues yet!!!
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top