Install GarageBand on an external drive

Mar 12, '04 09:50:00AM

Contributed by: MacFandango

I'm running an older PowerBook, one that has the capabilities to run GarageBand but (thanks to my burgeoning music collection) not the required 1.2+ GB of disk space. I wanted to install GarageBand on an external drive, loops and all, but the iLife 04 installer wasn't gonna let that happen. However, after a little digging around, I managed to get GarageBand installed on an external drive - and it works perfectly!

  1. First, insert the iLife 04 install DVD into your DVD drive. When the DVD opens, ctrl-click on the "Install" icon and choose "Show Original." This will bring you to a folder on the DVD (hidden in the Finder) with lots of packages. There are two you're interested in: GarageBandApp.pkg and GarageBandDocs.pkg. Copy these somewhere onto your computer off of the DVD.
  2. Download Pacifist. (It's a useful piece of shareware; I recommend purchasing it. However, it'll work just fine unregistered.) Once it's downloaded, launch it. Click "Open Package" and navigate your way to GarageBandApp.pkg.
  3. The window that opens will show that the package contains an Applications folder and a Library folder. Highlight both, click "Extract To" on the Pacifist toolbar, and choose the external drive you wish to extract to. I recommend installing GB and its libraries/loops to the root directory of the external drive, because that's what I did and I can guarantee it works, but I think (in theory) a subfolder would also work.
  4. Repeat the above procedure for GarageBandDocs.pkg. If you choose to install GarageBandApp.pkg in the root directory, do the same for GarageBandDocs; if you chose a subfolder, choose the same subfolder, etc.
  5. Open Terminal. Type in the following (replacing badfan with the name of your external drive; badfan happens to be the name of mine; the following is one long line -- replace the line break with a single space):
    ln -s /Volumes/badfan/Library/Application\ Support/GarageBand/
    /Library/Application\ Support
    You may need to use sudo before that; I don't recall if I did or not. For non-UNIX-nerds, this basically tricks GarageBand into looking in the normal place for its documentation and loops, but it's actually looking at the copy on the external drive.
That's it! Now launch your external copy of GarageBand and it should work as expected. Note that you cannot replace the last step by just making an alias via the Finder; I tried this, and it appears GarageBand couldn't follow the alias, but it can follow the symbolic link.

Happy composing!

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