Leopard killed my G4

Well, maybe not killed, but knocked it out cold. :-(

Here's the story:

I rescued a grey G4 laptop from the recycle bin to give to my uncle, who needs a computer for email and limited browsing. He's not computer literate, so I figured even a G4 is better than nothing.

I read that Leopard is the last OS that will work on a G4. I popped my Leopard disk into the drive and after much grief, determined the drive is faulty and won't read anything at all. So, I put the disk into my macbook (running 10.7.2), plugged it into the G4 laptop with a firewire cable, and then restarted the macbook holding down T. It booted up with the Firewire symbol.

I then started up the G4 laptop holding option, and chose the OS Install disk as my option. I went through the install dialog box, but when I got to the install part, it told me I couldn't install it on the G4 laptop.

So then, not to be foiled, I started up the G4 laptop holding T, and started up the macbook. I saw the HD for the G4 laptop on the macbook desktop. Then I went through the install screens (this time on the macbook) and installed the Leopard onto the G4 laptop that way.

When I restarted the macbook, I had forgotten to disconnect the firewire cable and it used the HD on the G4 laptop as it's startup drive! And it worked just fine!

Then I shut down both computers, unplugged the firewire cable, then restarted both computers. The macbook started up as normal. The G4 laptop came up with a flashing missing disk symbol (the folder with the question mark on it).

I'm vexed and annoyed. This SHOULD work! What did I do wrong? What can I do to fix it?

Is it a black retail-version Leopard DVD? If it's a gray one, it doesn't have all the correct files for your model Mac.

G'day and welcome to the forums.

The only Leopard operating system that will install is a full retail install DVD, black, which will set you back about $100 on eBay and such. The silver/grey disc from your MacBook will never install as it is extremely model specific. The MacBook uses different drivers to a G4 hence your problem.

And Leopard will only install on a G4 with an 867MHz processor or higher.

And it should NOT work no matter how vexed you are.

It's the retail version - bought it from the Mac store. Not the grey disks.

timwayne said:

It's the retail version - bought it from the Mac store. Not the grey disks.

Click to expand...

If you bought it recently from the Apple Store it isn't Leopard.

gsahli said:

Is it a black retail-version Leopard DVD? If it's a gray one, it doesn't have all the correct files for your model Mac.

Click to expand...

I bought it some time ago. Here's a photo of the disk and the box.

Is this the wrong OS for my little grey mac?

Is the problem that I used the macbook to install the files onto the firewire-mounted grey G4 laptop?

It won't work the other way - when I firewire mount the macbook and use the disk over the firewire, it says... well, I don't remember what it says. I'm gonna go through the process and take photos.

Who knows?

Picture takes weeks to load. And as said earlier if your little grey Mac is less than 867MHz processor then it will not install anything later than Tiger.

Aaaaaaand FIXED!

I read the dialog box this time. Thanks for making me go back and check!















and it's installing just fine now! YAY!

Thanks!

Fixed.

timwayne said:

Fixed.

Click to expand...

How? What was the problem?

He was using an incorrect partition scheme. He was using GUID when he should have been using the Apple Partition Map instead. It's a PPC machine not Intel.

Ahh ok, thanks Chris.

Very cool. Glad you got it working. I was going to bring up the 867Mhz thing but obviously it is. I love those 12" Power books!