I just got a mac powerbook g3 and it had os 9 on it.......im trying to install os 10 on it but I would like to do a full format of the drive first......ok I know you guys are going to tell me to do it durring the install...but it says the drive is read only when I choose to delete it.....I dont have a copy of os 9 and I only have a ibook copy of os 10.........Please help, new mac user Gordon
help please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter gac1983
- Start date
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
Which particular PowerBook G3 do you have? Some aren't officially supported to run certain versions of OS X if at all. Check Low End Mac for the exact PowerBook G3 you have.
It is a powerbook g3 lombard bronze made in 2000. I just finished installing os 10 on it but had to just install it. It wouldnt let me format before the install. To maximize the wopping 4 gig hd I would like to format then install. Ty for the reply hope you can help me....Gordon
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
Well, if it had OS 9 then there really was no need to reformat the hard drive, especially if you need to upgrade the firmware for whatever reason (some firmware upgrades require the Mac to be booted to OS 9 in order to install). However, if you needed to reformat it it's possible that you had to select Customize during the installation during the point where you had to select the hard drive. In there, it would have given you options to Upgrade Existing (which you did), Archive & Install (installs a clean System directory for OS X without wping out the drive completely), or Erase and Install (this is what you might have wanted to do).
camgangrel21
Mac Programer
you also might try useing the Disk Tool that is on any OS X copy. There you can do clean format of the drive and even if want to do a low "format" of the drive. putting the drive on the state of that it would came had you just picked up that drive up from the store. But you did not tell us what Ver of OS X your try to install. you may need to get a bigger hard drive to run 10.4 or 10.3 on your G3 laptop. Because I have a Wall Street G3 and had to get a bigger hard drive. so that the OS had leg room to make sawp files. to run at ok speeds.
Let me know if there is any more that I can do to help get up and runing. I run a PowerBook G3 233 Mhz and 160 MB of RAM and a 100 GB hard drive running OS 9 and OS 10.4.6 and a 3th part just for files that I download and want to keep on hand on the drive. it work as good as ant thing I have tried. If you want to run 10.3 or higher you will need a copy of Xpostfacto to make that happen.
Let me know if there is any more that I can do to help get up and runing. I run a PowerBook G3 233 Mhz and 160 MB of RAM and a 100 GB hard drive running OS 9 and OS 10.4.6 and a 3th part just for files that I download and want to keep on hand on the drive. it work as good as ant thing I have tried. If you want to run 10.3 or higher you will need a copy of Xpostfacto to make that happen.