Dec 16, '05 05:44:00AM • Contributed by: MikefromCanmore
Panther (10.3) was able to install perfectly on the older iMacs and Power Macs (Blue & Whites). Now, becasue a FireWire port is required, you cannot install on those machines. There are, however, two ways you can install it on unsupported machines. You can either clone a drive that already has Tiger running, or you can burn a compatible copy of the install disc. I will only cover how to reburn the DVD in this tutorial.
You Need:
- At least 256MB RAM in the computer you plan to install Tiger on.
- A working Mac with a DVD Superdrive. It doesn't matter whether external or internal, but it must be a burner.
- The mac you plan to install Tiger on must have a DVD drive.
Here are the general steps to follow -- note that iMac-specific 'no DVD' installation steps follow below this section.
- Go to Applications->Utilities and open Disk Utility.
- Insert your tiger DVD.
- Select Session 1 of the Tiger DVD and press the New Image button. (Do not select the drive name itself, or it will not make an image.)
- Name the image file and press OK. The image will take between five and fifteen minutes to be built. Grab a cup of coffee -- it may be longer or shorter, depending on the drive and whether it is internal or external.
- Double click on the new image to mount it.
- On the mounted install image, go to /System -> Installation -> Packages.
- Control-click on OSInstall.mpkg and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.
- Go into the Contents folder, and control-click on OSInstall.dist. Select Open With -> Other from the pop-up menu, then navigate to whereText Edit is, and click Open.
- Look for the following lines of code (note: line break added for a narrower display; don't add one in the code!):
Now, if you want to be able to install on all unsupported machines, just delete eveything in the square brackets. I changed my OSInstall.dist to (note: line break added for a narrower display; don't add one in the code!):function checkSupportedMachine(machineType){ var badMachines = ['iMac','PowerBook1,1','PowerBook2,1', 'AAPL,Gossamer', 'AAPL,PowerMac G3', 'AAPL,PowerBook1998', 'AAPL,PowerBook1999'];
With the code above, it enabled Tiger to be installed on an iMac and Power Mac G3 (Blue & White).function checkSupportedMachine(machineType){ var badMachines = ['PowerBook1,1','PowerBook2,1', 'AAPL,Gossamer', 'AAPL,PowerBook1998', 'AAPL,PowerBook1999']; - Save the changes to your desktop under the name "OSInstall.dist" -- without the .txt ending.
- Drag the new OSInstall.dist into the window that has the contents of OSInstall.mpkg. It will ask you whether to replace the old one or not. Choose Replace.
- Unmount the disk image.
- Go into disk utility. Select your image and then press Burn.
To install on an older iMac (without DVD) you need:
- Spare AT (386) power supply OR A long Molex "Y" cable.
- An IDE cable that is fairly long.
- At least one to two hours of time.
- 256MB RAM.
- Big hard drive.
- DVD Drive (must be an internal model).
- Open iMac and get to the logic board area.
- Unplug the CD and hard drive and remove them and their cables.
- Plug the IDE cable to where the hard drive was connected (inside iMac).
- If you have the long Y connector, plug it into where the hard drive power was.
- Re-assemble and feed IDE cable (and Y connector if applicable) through the space where the CD drive was.
- Plug AT power supply into drives and wall --or-- Plug Y cable into both drives.
- IMPORTANT: Set the jumper(s) on DVD drive to master and on hard drive to Slave.
- Either Turn on AT power supply, then computer then iMac, or turn on iMac (if you used the Y cable).
- You should now get a flashing folder. Put the Tiger disc you just burned into the DVD drive.
- If it all worked, you should see the familiar Grey apple logo and with white background.
- Install Tiger; set setting to the way you want them.
- When it restarts, turn off the computer (and AT power supply if applicable).
- Set jumpers to DVD: Slave, Hard Drive:Master.
- Start up computer and check if it worked.
- Unplug DVD and hard drive from computer, and take apart iMac.
- Plug the CD back in and place the hard drive back into the iMac, and reconnect all cables. (Make sure the hard drive jumpers are set to Master or Single Drive)
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one, and clearly (with the iMac hint), there's potential for harm to yourself or your computer. Proceed at your own risk!]
