Installing Mac OS X on a Powerbook without DVD/CD

A

anerki

Registered
I have the Mac OS X Tiger DVD, and it's running purrty on my Powermac, alas, my old Powerbook G4 who has seen better days badly needs a reinstallation of the OS. The old 10.3 on there is hardly even recognizable and half of the functions are not even working properly, or just missing!

Now the problem is this: The Superdrive in the Powerbook is broken. It doesn't read any CD/DVD and if I try to insert one it will eat one, and I have to screw the Powerbook open, disconnect the Superdrive and pull out the disc with pincers, not ideally of course :)

Now I do know I can connect the Powerbook to my Powermac using a Firewire cable and holding T while booting up, thus booting the Powerbook as a "mere" portable hard disk. Will this work to install Mac OS 10.4? Can I boot up with the DVD in the Powermac and simply install it on the Powerbook?
 
Technically this will work, you just select the Powerbook drive as the destination. You will however need another 10.4 licence unless you have a family pack to install it on a second system.
 
Isn't it licensed for all my home use computers? Like the Microsoft Office I have gives me 3 registration numbers :D
 
No. But as far as installation goes, I'd do it the _other_ way 'round, i.e. you put the DVD into the PowerMac's drive, power it down and start it in Firewire target mode. Then, when you attach it to the PowerBook, both the PowerMac's harddrives as well as the DVD should mount beautifully - and should also be bootable just fine.

If the 10.4 disk you have is the original system software of the PowerMac, it won't work, though, since those are only meant for the specific Mac family. But since you need another license, anyway, you should get the retail version of 10.4.6 now.
 
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