revert to tiger from leopard

**jahdore** · January 14th, 2009, 07:25 AM

I have a powerbook G4 and a friend of mine installed leopard on it over a year ago but i'm having problems now and i want to go back to tiger but when i put the install cd on the computer it tells me that i can't put this program on this computer.

**Doctor X** · January 14th, 2009, 08:02 AM

Yup.

So . . . back up your data . . . erase your disk . . . reinstall Tiger . . . add your data.

--J.D.

**fryke** · January 14th, 2009, 08:07 AM

To completely ignore Doctor X' message and put it in other words:

1.) You can't "downgrade", i.e. a reinstallation is required.
2.) Backup everything. Easiest: Clone your harddrive to another harddrive with Carbon Copy Cloner.
3.) Clean install Tiger from the original installation disks that came with the computer.
4.) Bring back important data from the clone.

Some information can probably _not_ be brought back, i.e. Mail.app upgrades the database when upgrading to Leopard. I'm not sure whether you'll manage to bring all those mails back. Similarly, it's possible that iCal and AddressBook don't handle the newer databases well.

A whole other question that arises: Are the problems you're having now solveable? Maybe we can find a solution that _doesn't_ involve going back to Tiger?

**Doctor X** · January 14th, 2009, 08:16 AM

Mine was in iambic pentameter.

--J.D.

P.S. Depending on what G4 you have--processor and maximum RAM--you may indeed find Leopard problematic. You will lose whatever Leopard specific programs and settings you had, but if the system is not working for you, it is not working for you. 10.4.11 is a very good system.

I am unaware of how you can get around wiping your drive.

One problem you might have--after a year--is you have not maintained the Leopard and/or you lack the ability to fix problems since a friend installed it, and you possibly do not have the installation disks.

**andychrist** · January 14th, 2009, 08:17 AM

If you are having problems you might just as well try re-installing Leopard rather than going all the way back to Tiger.

BTW, have you tried adding a new user account to see whether the problem is just on your own home library? Kind of the easiest first step.

**jahdore** · January 23rd, 2009, 04:57 PM

Thank you for all your answers...there's some good in each of them...and yeah finally i went back to tiger since i didn't have the leopard installations disks...i backed up all my data on an ext hard drive reinstalled tiger and it's better than ever!!
Even though i extended the ram to 1 gig it was still slow on leopard when now it's good again and fast.
I lost a few data and cannot use some applications but nothing major..
As you said Doctor X 10.4.11 is a very good system

Thanks again guys for taking time to help!

**ex2bot** · January 24th, 2009, 10:17 PM

IMHO Tiger is probably the best for G4s. It requires less memory and is somewhat quicker. Still, the feature I'd miss most going back to 10.4 would be Time Machine.