How to Legally Install Leopard Without a DVD
I'm pretty sure installing Leopard in any way other than a DVD violates the TOS. However, I could be wrong about this. Anyway here's the issue. I bought a copy of Leopard family-pack on opening day so I would have it hours before it officially went on sale (if everyone remembers, the retail copies from Apple were delivered early that day).
I just got around to trying to install it on my 6 year old Titanium PowerBook G4 667mhz which my parents currently use. However, the DVD part of the combo-drive does not work. I insert the disc and the drive just pathetically sputters. It's still a good computer otherwise: It has a fast 80 gb hd and 768mb of ram (although overall the system is a dog compared to my 2 year old macbook pro).
So obviously I'm out of warranty on the dvd-drive, it would be prohibitively expensive to fix, and I still want to install Leopard.
Any ideas?
I just got around to trying to install it on my 6 year old Titanium PowerBook G4 667mhz which my parents currently use. However, the DVD part of the combo-drive does not work. I insert the disc and the drive just pathetically sputters. It's still a good computer otherwise: It has a fast 80 gb hd and 768mb of ram (although overall the system is a dog compared to my 2 year old macbook pro).
So obviously I'm out of warranty on the dvd-drive, it would be prohibitively expensive to fix, and I still want to install Leopard.
Any ideas?
Comments
Plus you should find more use for an external hard drive than an external DVD drive.
Either buy an external USB or firewire DVD drive or a hard drive and clone the install DVD onto the drive. The hard drive option is best IMO and that's the method I use for upgrading lots of computers as the installation actually goes significantly faster.
Plus you should find more use for an external hard drive than an external DVD drive.
Could you expand on using an external HDD. How do you clone the install DVDs onto the drive? Just copy them?
When upgrading using the ext. HDD, and you're asked to insert disk 1, disk 2, etc., how do you do that?
I agree with the above response.
I have a 4th-gen iPod that I once used to install Tiger (obtained as a .dmg back in the day). However, I don't know what the process is for cloning my legitimate Leopard Install DVD and using the hard drive for the installation process.
Boot theirs into target disk mode (check the key you have to hold on boot, thinks it's "T").
Their drive will show as a mounted external drive on your machine.
Insert DVD into the "good" machine and start the install, selecting the other machine the target.
So I'd just need a 6-pin to 6-pin FW cable. Do you have any experience with this method? Also, know any places to get cheap cables?
You just need a standard cable, the "master" machine can be up and already running, the target - you hook up the cable, then power it up while holding the correct key for target disk mode...
Pretty sure it's "T", but you can always check for that particular model.
This has been around forever - still works on my 1st gen MacBook.
-KWE
Oh, interesting.
So I'd just need a 6-pin to 6-pin FW cable. Do you have any experience with this method? Also, know any places to get cheap cables?
Hm.
I might not do it because the PowerBook is only 667 mhz- just below the minimum system requirements of Leopard.
Could you expand on using an external HDD. How do you clone the install DVDs onto the drive? Just copy them?
When upgrading using the ext. HDD, and you're asked to insert disk 1, disk 2, etc., how do you do that?
To clone them, you can use Disk Utility's restore feature to restore the contents of the DVD onto the drive partition. If you have multiple discs, you would make a separate partition for each disc. The newer discs are just a single DVD so they are easier to use.
I might not do it because the PowerBook is only 667 mhz- just below the minimum system requirements of Leopard.
Yeah I wouldn't put Leopard on that machine.