Installing Tiger on a computer without a DVD drive?
I'm thinking of getting a family pack of Tiger, but I don't know whether there's any way of installing Tiger on my dad's Quicksilver G4 that has a CD-RW drive (I personally think that this was a grandly stupid idea: that's going to get a lot of the 'from-the-store' Mac Mini new users pissed that they can't install this 'Tiger' thing that everybody's talking about)
So, is there any way? (I have a G5, for reference, so if the installer installs differently on G5s and G4s...)
So, is there any way? (I have a G5, for reference, so if the installer installs differently on G5s and G4s...)
Comments
Originally posted by Placebo
(I personally think that this was a grandly stupid idea: that's going to get a lot of the 'from-the-store' Mac Mini new users pissed that they can't install this 'Tiger' thing that everybody's talking about)
Mac minis all come with a combo drive at least, so no problem there.
Anyway, check out the Media Exchange program (middle right column) to purchase Tiger on CD:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/
I installed Tiger from onto my non DVD MAC thus.
On my Tiger mac I have a disk with 2 partitions (tiger and Work). I used Disk util to erase the Work partition. I then used carbon copy cloner to copy the tiger DVD onto my partition.
Put a firewire cable between the 2 macs.
Reboot the tiger mac and hold down the T key until the firewire symbol appeared.
Reboot the non-dvd mac and hold down the option key.
Boot from the tiger partition (not the copied one).
When up and running you will see the non-dvd mac local drive plus the 2 tiger drives Tiger and Work.
Open the Work drive in a finder window and click on
/System/Installers/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg
You may need to use disk utility to erase the non-dvd mac drive.
Install as you normally would.
When finish unplug the firewire cable and reboot the non-dvd mac and you have a tiger mac.
I you don't have a spare partition you could save a disk image and the the above but mount the .dmg after you boot from the dvdmac Tiger drive via firewire.
Simple huh!
Dobby.
This also works.
Insert Tiger DVD in the DVD drive mac.
Plug firewire cable into non-dvd mac.
Reboot non-dvd mac and hold down T key.
Start the install of tiger on the dvd mac.
Select the non-dvd mac firewire drive to install to.
Much easier than pissing around with partitions.
Dobby.
Originally posted by geekdreams
Mac minis all come with a combo drive at least, so no problem there.
Ah, okay. Sounds good.
Originally posted by dobby
Insert Tiger DVD in the DVD drive mac.
Plug firewire cable into non-dvd mac.
Reboot non-dvd mac and hold down T key.
Start the install of tiger on the dvd mac.
Select the non-dvd mac firewire drive to install to.
Interesting. Do you know if this will work on an old non-firewire Powerbook using a firewire adaptor (PCMCIA)? I have a Jaguar copy in DVD (useless now that I run Panther), and I would like to install it in such a Powerbook.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
This may sound kind of ridiculous, but aren't combo drives none-too-expensive now? I'd say just suck it up and buy a new drive. It's an investment for the computer's future.
not really the answer if you have an iMac - i used an external FireWire DVD drive.
Originally posted by MacCrazy
not really the answer if you have an iMac - i used an external FireWire DVD drive.
True. I was specifically commenting to Placebo as author of this thread.
Originally posted by dobby
Ignore overly complicated previous reply.
This also works.
Insert Tiger DVD in the DVD drive mac.
Plug firewire cable into non-dvd mac.
Reboot non-dvd mac and hold down T key.
Start the install of tiger on the dvd mac.
Select the non-dvd mac firewire drive to install to.
Much easier than pissing around with partitions.
Dobby.
I had thought of that but I wondered, doesn't the installer check the kind of computer being used for the install and modify the install accordingly? In other words, if you try this with G5 connected to a G3 iMac won't it install a bunch of G5 code and drivers for the G5 accessories? Or do all installations get all the software?
It might be slow, but I was thinking of networking two computers, one with a DVD drive and one without and mounting the DVD drive over the network. If I used FW networking that might not be too slow. Of course, I'd first have to learn how to do FW networking. :>
Originally posted by icfireball
QUESTION: Do you think I could copy the tiger DVD onto my iPod and then install it from my iPod?
yes