run 10.5 on a brand new imac - trouble

[marvin*1*2]

i have to downgrade the OS from 10.6 to 10.5 on a brand new imac 21.5" as we need to operate a crappy old HP scanner (of course, HP dropped driver-support after less than 5 yrs ) - the scanner now works, but the computer is far from flawless. booting works only every 2nd time, first time it just stops half-way, last msg being something like 'runtime in milliseconds: 38247394', no other msgs that seem to explain the system halt.
also, once up and running, doing snapshots (cmd-shift-3/4) produces just garbage. that's what we've noticed so far, but there's probably more issues...
seems like the new graphics adapter isn't supported properly on 10.5....

any ideas how i could get 10.5 working properly or how to get this old HP scanner running?
thanks, phil

 

[0007776]

You're lucky that it boots at all. You normally can't install a lower version of the OS than a computer shipped with since driver support will not be there. I think your choices are to either deal with a very unstable system, buy a used iMac that supports 10.5 or buy a new scanner that works.

 

[Blue Velvet]

What kind of HP scanner is it and why is it more important to use that specific machine, rather than gimping a new and expensive Mac? Do you do a lot of scanning, and if so, what kind of scanning? Is the scanner a relatively expensive one?

What exactly happens when you try to scan under 10.6? Are you scanning through supplied software, through Photoshop or another imaging application or through Image Capture?

As mrkramer points out, you're lucky to get the machine to boot at all as Macs will only usually boot from the OS that they were supplied with and higher... and the fact that you've managed to get it to start up only means that you've made just as many problems for yourself, as it'll never be stable.

Concentrating on getting the scanner working with 10.6.x is a far better route.

 

[marvin*1*2]

the scanner is a hp scanjet 5590 with document feeder. is just the machine we still have sitting around. we need it for book scanning. mostly text, with few pics, producing pdfs from it.

there's a bunch of forum threads around that document the issues with 10.6.
that's why i figured i downgrade.

with me, at first, scanning worked, but only through the included software (scan pro for 10.6). creating a pdf directly from adobe pro never worked.
two days later, attempting to scan resulted in somehting like 'device not found' even though it was recognized in the sysprofiler as well as the device manager that came with HP's 10.6 scan sofware.

this really sucks as my list of pendencies is only growing since five months and i got tons of more important stuff to do than fiddling with this HP p.o.s...

 

[Blue Velvet]

The 'Unable to communicate with scanner...' error you've bought up is mentioned on HP's site where they say that they've released new software for the 5590 at the bottom of this page in Phase 2.

Is this the software that you've tried on 10.6? The one still causing problems?

If the driver is installed, have you tried using something like VueScan which lists your scanner as being supported?

 

[marvin*1*2]

hp software is the same.
didn't try vuescan yet.

i guess i'll reinstall back to 10.6 and try that.

thanks for your help guys!