Dual-Boot 10.4 and 10.5

[PowerPCFan]

Hi! I have a Power Mac G4 running 10.5 Leopard. I want to install Tiger on a second partition of the hard disk. I know how to install, but I don't know how to partition a hard drive without erasing the whole disk. I want to have 10.4 and 10.5 installed, so I can hold Option at boot to select between 3 OSes:
1. Tiger (on HDD)
2. Leopard (on HDD)
3. Adelie Linux (installed on a separate disk - a CF card in a CF2IDE)

I don't want to lose any data, because there's some cool software on the HDD that I can't find anywhere.

 

[barbu]

Might be simpler/safer to just find an old HDD to put in the tower?
I think to partition that drive you’ll want to boot from an installer disc and use Disk Utility. I think that should work but my memory of the capabilities of older versions is… fading ;-)

 

[PowerPCFan]

The hard drive is an 80GB Seagate Barracuda IDE hard drive that currently has OS X Leopard on it. I also wanted to install Tiger. I was going to partition the disk but I waited to use Disk Utility on the DVD just in case Tiger didn't work. But the problem I forgot to mention is that every time I put in the DVD, it gives me a kernel panic and says I have to reboot.

 

[bobesch]

I would go for a clone-backup of the entire drive first.
You may use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!
The USB- or FireWire- backup drive has to be formatted first using the "Apple Partition Scheme" in order to be complient to PPC and to make the drive bootable.
As soon as you have succeeded in having a bootable external drive, you may boot from that drive, to make sure, everything works as intended and run Disk Utility to run the two repair options (drive/permissions). Then start partitioning. 10GB at the end of the drive should do for Tiger/Classic.
If anything should go wrong, you have the external clone-backup to clone the system back onto your internal drive.

 

[PowerPCFan]

Would a 64gb microsd card in my MicroSD to USB adapter work? I use it for other things on that mac and it works well. The drive is 80gb, but I still have 30gb left, so it should fit, right?

 

[Amethyst1]

Would a 64gb microsd card in my MicroSD to USB adapter work? I use it for other things on that mac and it works well. The drive is 80gb, but I still have 30gb left, so it should fit, right?

If your Mac only has USB 1.1 ports (that depends on the model), backing up to that microSD card will be excruciatingly slow. You can try using iPartition to non-destructively shrink the Leopard partition and add a second partition for Tiger.

 

[PowerPCFan]

I wasn't the original owner so I'm not sure what type of USB, but it's the Power Mac G4 MDD Single 1GHz PowerPC G4. That's all I know, but based off of the awful speeds, I think it's 1.1.

 

[Amethyst1]

I wasn't the original owner so I'm not sure what type of USB, but it's the Power Mac G4 MDD Single 1GHz PowerPC G4. That's all I know, but based off of the awful speeds, I think it's 1.1.

Sounds right.

 

[wnlewis]

I wasn't the original owner so I'm not sure what type of USB, but it's the Power Mac G4 MDD Single 1GHz PowerPC G4. That's all I know, but based off of the awful speeds, I think it's 1.1.

What color is the plastic in the USB ports on the computer? Here are general color and speed numbers. The information comes from: https://ourtechroom.com/tech/guide-usb-port-colors-red-blue-yellow-black-white-orange-teal/. White: 1.1. Black: 2.X. Yellow (I've never seen yellow on a Mac): 2.0 or 3.0. Blue: 3.0 (up to 5.0 Gbps). Red: 3.1 Gen 2 and 3.2 (up to 10 Gbps). There is also an orange plastic that is 3.0 (I've never seen that on a Mac).

I have found with my own Sawtooth G4 that when I am doing something very fiddly it is better to opt for patience over speed. A 1.1 USB stick in a 1.1 USB port has a much better chance of booting one of these old Macs than say a blue or a red plastic USB stick in a white plastic port.

A very, very few of the old Macs (such as my Sawtooth (AGP) G4) CANNOT be booted off a USB stick, UNLESS you find the internal path to the port, and then provide that path to the Mac when you boot. If you do an option boot startup, you will not see the USB stick regardless. You have to give the Mac the path to the USB stick. And before you boot, you have to wipe the PRAM of any previous instructions. Only then will it do what you ask it to do. Part of having some of the old PowerPC's.

 

[bobesch]

But the problem I forgot to mention is that every time I put in the DVD, it gives me a kernel panic and says I have to reboot.

I presume you've got a Tiger-DVD (black /w big silver X). I'm not quite sure ... but wasn't there version for PPC and another for Intel-only?

 

[PowerPCFan]

wnlewis, Thanks for the color codes, I 100% have 1.1.

Bobesch, Good question, I had used this Tiger DVD to install before. I did install it while running 10.2 and it worked. I think Leopard just doesn't like my DVD. It reads it but won't boot it. The thing is, I was just going to revert back.to Tiger but wasn't able to.

 

[Amethyst1]

I presume you've got a Tiger-DVD (black /w big silver X). I'm not quite sure ... but wasn't there version for PPC and another for Intel-only?

There has never been a retail (black-and-silver) Tiger client DVD for Intel Macs. Using a machine-specific (grey) Tiger client DVD for Intel Macs on a PPC Mac causes a kernel panic.
There was/is, however, a retail Tiger Server v10.4.7 build 8K1079 DVD that works on both PPC and Intel Macs.

 

[bobesch]

Would a 64gb microsd card in my MicroSD to USB adapter work? I use it for other things on that mac and it works well. The drive is 80gb, but I still have 30gb left, so it should fit, right?

Given, the USB-port of your PMG4MDD is USB1.1, the speed for backup and booting is abysmal.
In order to get the MicroSD working as a bootable drive you'll also have to erase and re-partition the whole MicroSD with Apple Partition Scheme.
It would be a much better choice to get either a SATA-PCI-card and a second hard drive (as @barbu mentioned).
Or a 2nd-hand external FireWire-drive.
Then you'll have either the second drive for an additional OSX or for backups (clone-backups or TimeMachine or both on a diffent partitions)

 

[cellularmitosis]

Have you tried booting from the Leopard install DVD and resizing the partitions? If I recall correctly, as long as you didn't install OS 9 drivers on the partition, the Leopard installer Disk Utility can resize them without wiping them. It should have specific wording in the confirmation dialog which says whether it will wipe or preserve the data.

 

[cellularmitosis]

Here's a screenshot

 

[PowerPCFan]

I don't have a Leopard install DVD, but I have an install USB (I didn't have a retail copy or any blank DVDs) that I used that worked great, I'll try that.

 

[PowerPCFan]

I know, I know, it's USB 1.1. But if I installed Leopard from USB 1.1 and was patient enough to sit in front of a loading bar for 6 hours, I think Disk Utility would be fine. I was also too lazy to get Safari 3.1 (or whatever version it is) to work and I used TenFourFox off of a USB hard drive. I still do! It's actually just as fast as Chrome on this iMac!

 

[PowerPCFan]

I presume you've got a Tiger-DVD (black /w big silver X). I'm not quite sure ... but wasn't there version for PPC and another for Intel-only?

How would I know if it was PPC or Intel? Here's a photo.

 

[Jack Neill]

How would I know if it was PPC or Intel? Here's a photo. View attachment 1972198

I don't think there was ever a retail Intel. The only Tiger Intel discs were grey restore discs.

 

[Amethyst1]

How would I know if it was PPC or Intel? Here's a photo. View attachment 1972198

This is PowerPC. There’s no retail Tiger client for Intel.

 

[PowerPCFan]

Then do you know why it does kernel panic and doesn't boot when I try to boot from it? I thought it was because Tiger is older than the OS I have on is right now, I may be wrong.

 

[PowerPCFan]

Do I have to hold the C key? I had been holding Option to view the boot menu.

 

[Amethyst1]

Do I have to hold the C key? I had been holding Option to view the boot menu.

Holding [C] tells the Mac to boot from the DVD straight away, but holding [Option] to bring up the boot picker should™ show the DVD too.

Then do you know why it does kernel panic and doesn't boot when I try to boot from it? I thought it was because Tiger is older than the OS I have on is right now, I may be wrong.

Can you see the actual error message when it panics and take a picture of it?

 

[PowerPCFan]

I will next time I try to boot from it. I'm busy right now, but I should be able to send a photo by 11:00 tomorrow.

 

[Amethyst1]

I will next time I try to boot from it. I'm busy right now, but I should be able to send a photo by 11:00 tomorrow.

If it doesn't show any message, boot in verbose mode: Hold [C] or use the boot picker to boot from DVD and immediately hold [Command]-[V] until you see lots of text scrolling down the screen.