OS 10.3 B&W G3 Serious Install Problem

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EnemyofGiygas

Registered
Hi! Thanks for looking at my problem.

I have a Power Mac G3 B&W with a gig of ram and 10.3.9. Well, I HAD 10.3.9 until recently. I will describe exactly what I have done and tried so far.

It was running a little slow and I had just gotten an external 250G hard drive. I was currently debating what to do about the fact that I couldn't use my iPod on this machine, because in order to get the next version of iTunes I needed to do so, I had to obtain 10.4. Things were already getting a little sticky on my system and I had been wanting to learn more about macs in general, since I knew they were the machines I wanted to have the rest of my days. So I decided to do a clean install of 10.3 with the two 10.3 discs I have.

Now, this machine came from someone else who was gracious enough to give it to me and I have enjoyed it very much. It's slow, but steady without bugs or crashes, which I love. I put in the install discs and booted the computer up with the disc. At the install page where it brings up the hard drives you have available, it had warning signs on both drives. I wasn't surprised about the external drive, as I have heard you can't boot or run a system off of an external drive, but I was using it for applications, music and photoshop files. But when I looked at the internal drive, it said the following:

"Can't install due to the fact that there is a later version of OS X already installed on this drive."

Bull. There was 10.3.9 and I was trying to do a clean install of 10.3. The rest is all free updates, right? So why should it matter? So I saw that I couldn't do a clean install and then made my fatal error. I should have created a disk image and put it onto my external drive. I didn't.

Then I wiped the drive. Twice over. Thinking that I'd be able to install 10.3 with the discs I had that were for that purpose. Wrong.

When I put the disc in and booted the system up with it it said it wouldn't install it because there WASN'T an EARLIER version of OS X on that drive.

This seems like a GIANT catch-22 designed to get me to buy more products which I cannot afford. I just got out of college, I'm an artist/designer and I NEED this mac. I can't keep using this stupid Dell my buddy is letting me borrow. It's not hacking it. I just want my baby back. We've been through a lot together.

I would be eternally grateful and send massive amounts of good energy to anyone that would be willing to help me resuscitate my only companion in life at this time (I hope you are hearing all the irony and not taking this at face value. I am distraught, though).

Thank you.
 
Are your disk the retail Apple disks or the gray disks that come with another computer?

I have never seen such an error. What exactly did you do with the cd?
 
it's a set of two, black, Mac OS X Panther 10.3 Install Discs (Upgrade Disc)

I don't have the original discs. This system was given to me by a good friend, but he didn't have any support or software for it except what was on. I've been managing up to now, and a friend gave me those discs, as she didn't need them anymore - she's running leopard.

Personally, I'd much rather run Tiger, so I can actually use my iPod, but I'm afraid to buy or obtain a Tiger disc in case IT didn't work, either. I COULD torrent a disc image file for Tiger and try that, but considering the trouble, the illegality, and the fact it might not work either....


I'm stuck and this Dell hates me.

I'm not a fan of it, etither.

I read somewhere earlier that you had to get OS 9 running and then update the firmware. But I never used classic, and OS X was what got me into macs in the first place. If I installed classic, do you think anyone could help me figure out how to get back to OS X 10.3 that way?
 
The disks that you have for 10.3 are designated as upgrade disks - so, you need an older system already installed, so those will then upgrade that older system. Problem is, you already wiped the hard drive, and the upgrade disks won't work for the install when there's no system already installed. You will need to find and install an older version of OS X, just so you can use the upgrade set. It's a big bother to do a double-install. So, what can you do? You already said you would prefer Tiger (10.4), so I suggest trying to locate a 10.4 installer. Be sure to get the commercial install, which is a black DVD. The big catch-22 for 10.4, is that you normally only have a DVD installer, and you might not have a DVD reader in your B&W G3. But, that's easy enough to replace the internal drive with another DVD reader/burner. You won't have the choice to boot to an external firewire drive, so that's out. The B&W G3 can't boot to FireWire.
 
Serendipity is also going on eBay and finding just what you're looking for for a fair price!


You said as long as it's a black DVD right? I figured that I should avoid the gray ones, but sometimes the Tiger and Leopard discs say they only work for a certain computer, even though they're the "full retail" or "full install" discs. People make their listings purposely vague in order to get the sale, too.


Will you check this one out for me? Looks okay, but I'd appreciate your confirmation before I click on the Buy button.

Thanks a ton for your help. I'd been doing LOTS of research on the G3 in the last year, and finally being able to use my iPod with it would be glorious. Good thing I had that external drive, too, cause I'm not really losing any apps or data.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MAC-OS-X-Tiger-...ZViewItemQQptZUS_Software?hash=item3ef94aa32a
 
Glad you came back and asked.
The picture makes this product sale very misleading.
First- it's 10.4.9 - when Tiger did not come in a commercial version in 10.4.9
Also, the hardware test version is listed, when a commercial version does not have a hardware test included.
SO - what you see for sale is a set of 2 grey disks for a MacBook Pro.
And, that's what the first couple of lines also say (except for offering the info about the disks being grey - ! ). The picture is not a picture of the disk that you would get.

Just so you know - there's only 3 versions of the commercial install - the original 10.4, or 10.4.3, or 10.4.6 Those are the only versions that you want to look for.
And, yes, you will likely pay some exorbitant amount for the real installer.
 
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