Looking for printer recommendations for a Mac running 10.3.0. Advertised printers all seem to require 10.4 or higher. My friend has insufficient funds to upgrade an old laptop but now needs a printer for it. I believe it could be upgraded to Tiger (10.4.0) except the disk drive is inoperative.
If the optical drive is dead that should not be a problem as long as the Mac has FireWire ports. You can use an external Optical Drive or connect it as a target drive to another PPC Mac.
If it is pre-firewire, the quickest way may well be to remove HD, put it in an external enclosure and use a newer PPC Mac to install the OS the replace the HD.
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If the optical drive is dead that should not be a problem as long as the Mac has FireWire ports. You can use an external Optical Drive or connect it as a target drive to another PPC Mac.
If it is pre-firewire, the quickest way may well be to remove HD, put it in an external enclosure and use a newer PPC Mac to install the OS the replace the HD.
The laptop does indeed have a FireWire port. Do you mean to say the Optical Drive must also be on a PPC Mac — PPC Mac linked to a PPC Mac for this to work? My Mac with the Optical Drive is an Intel Mac Mini running Snow Leopard. Not familiar with the procedure for "target drive" mounting. Networking is not one of my strengths.
okay, Morley, maybe I can help you-afaik, for the 1st question, probably not. Target mode is easy. connect both macs with firewire, then shut 'em down, and restart, holding down the "T" key-or maybe you just need to do that on the laptop-I forget
anyways-what it means is that the laptop should appear on your desktop as some kinda drive. Stick the Tiger retail (or whichever machine specific one you have for that laptop) into the drive, and select the laptop as the destination disk. Then install, and it should be okay--I'm not precisely sure on the target mode stuff, maybe Google can help you out. It's not that hard-but it's new, and we all have a fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, until it becomes known and familiar, then the fear goes away
Target mode is easy. In this case I would boot the MacIntel computer while keeping the T key depressed. Connect the 2 computers together with a FW cable (hopefully both are FW 400). Put the retail Tiger PPC disk in the drive slot of the MacIntel computer. Now boot the computer you are trying to upgrade holding down the option key. With luck you will be able to pick the Install disk as the boot drive. If the other computer also shows up as a possible option for boot drive do not select it as the PPC will not boot successfully from a MacIntel system.
I have never tried this but there would seem to be a good chance it just might work. Otherwise try to borrow an external FW optical drive. I would offer if you were anywhere close by but am quite sure you are not.
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Thank you all. Panther is now a Tiger. The Terminal technique worked like a charm. However, there's one caveat. Along the way I encountered an Apple document saying that Panther can't mount in Terminal mode a higher disk drive, that a dialogue will appear saying it can't find Panther's Hard Drive. And indeed this dialogue does come up with an "ignore" button. However, I had already loaded the Mac Mini's optical drive with the Tiger install disk. Clicking the ignore button closed the dialogue and the install disk was still mounted and visible on Panther. From here it was a standard install routine. My friend will be delighted.