Upgrading iMac G5

Kernow

Registered
I have a G5 1.8 with no hard drive. The logic board on my mini fried so i have the hard drive in a case. If I put a new hard drive in the G5, will I be able to put Mac OSX 10.5 straight onto it from the disc, or will I need to programme the new hard drive with earlier software before i can upgrade to Leopard?
 
Yes, all you need to do is choose your external hard drive as the destination for installing OS X. The only reason you would need to do differently, if you only have an updater DVD for Leopard (which would say "drop-in update" or "Updater", etc. on the DVD label) before you would need to install an earlier system.
 
Thanks
Forgot to say that iMac is not intel-based, but an older version.
I've tried holding down ALT at switch-on to get the start-up manager but just get a mauve screen with two icons - one a circular arrow & the other, a straight arrow.
 
Yes, you have the option-boot select screen. It's not precisely a start-up manager - but allows you to select any bootable drive or partition that your Mac might be able to 'see"

If you insert the 10.5 installer DVD, then restart holding that Option (alt) key, then you should see the installer DVD as a choice. You said that there's no hard drive installed, so the installer DVD would be the only icon that would appear.
The two arrows that you see, are the curly arrow, which is a 'try the search again' for a bootable partition. When you see several partitions, you can select whichever one that you want, and then click the right-facing arrow.

If you are simply trying to boot to the installer DVD, then all you need to do is restart while holding the letter C, and your Mac will attempt to boot from your installer DVD.
 
hey-ho, it's me again

Been trying unsuccessfully to boot non-intel G5 from OSX 10.5 installation dic from my mini.
I've been told that this disc will only have the binaries for intel & that i need a "retail" version of 10.5 as this has binaries for both intel & powermac processors.
Is this the case?

Regards
 
The original installer DVD for your intel Mini will not install on your iMac G5. That grey DVD is not intended to install on any other Mac model other than the Mac that it originally shipped with. You need the commercial 10.5 installer DVD if you want to upgrade or install 10.5 on your iMac G5.
 
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