[...] Looking for a way to install Leopard from an External Firewire Hard Drive? [...]

What partition scheme should the external drive that is being restored have to have in order to boot using PowerPc? So far I have restored to GUID formated drive and my powerbook doesn’t recognize it when booting. I have looked around on different forums and nothing is mentioned about having to format the external drive as either GUID or APM. I am reluctant to reformat the external disk and apply the APM because of the files on other partitions of the same disk.

JB,

Backup any files before you format or partition the drive.

To make it a bootable drive for OS X on a PowerPC, use APM.
To make a bootable partition for Intel Macs, use GUID.

I will update the post to address this issue, but in the meanwhile here is an amazing site that describes the process of formatting and partitioning a bootable drive for PowerPC and Intel Macs using Disk Utility.

Steve

Thanks a lot for this tutorial, will carefully follow it as soon as my external Hard Drive arrives

Figured it out. I formatted the disk as APM, restored the leopard .dmg to an 8GB partition. Now i can boot off of that leopard partition (the partition i’m talking bout here is the partition the installer was restored too) either using an Intel mac or PowerPc mac. In my first post, the drive was formatted as GUID and only intel macs could boot off of it. For some reason, when the drive was formatted as APM, intel macs could also boot off of the partition the leopard .dmg was restored too.

Apparently, “The only condition under
which a drive needs to be formatted as GUID, is when you run Apple’s OS X installer to install an Intel version of OS X onto it.”

The first thing I did when I received my new external drive was to clone my existing hard rive to it as a back up. Now I’d like to partition this external hard drive in order to place Leopard on it, as described in the above comments. Was it a mistake to place my cloned hard drive on first? Will this need to be erased prior to partitioning? If so, can I set up a separate partition for my existing hard drive clone back up or does time machine do the exact same thing?

Hi,

I am a little stuck on your method. In the first step, I open disk utility and when i try to make a new disk image, it does not have to option in image format to choose “Entire Device”. It only has “read only”, “compressed”, “read/write” and “DVD/CD Master”. Any tips on what i should do?? Thanks.

SSHG, I think you should choose DVD/CD Master…

Steve

I’ve heard conflicting reports on the ability to do this using a USB external drive, what is your take on it ?

Use a Firewire Hard Drive.

i have same problem with “sshg123″ he already said this (In the first step, I open disk utility and when i try to make a new disk image, it does not have to option in image format to choose “Entire Device”. It only has “read only”, “compressed”, “read/write” and “DVD/CD Master”. ) and same thing to me.. how can i find this..

The article says:

“You will need the following: OS X 10.4 Leopard Install Disk”

Please note: Leopard is 10.5 - not 10.4 as reflected by your article…

Other than that misprint it’s a great article!

Samat,

I would use DVD/CD Master.

Steve Blue

How did you get it to make a 10 GB partition? Under the Leopard Installer the smallest it allows us to make is a 27 GB partiton. Same with the Disk Utility from Tiger…

Do I need to make a .DMG first or can I simply clone the entire Leopard DVD to an external partition?

Hi Steve, nice guide.

Is there no workaround to use an usb hd instead? I have successfully installed Leopard on my intel macbook with an usb hd, but i cannot seem to boot on it from my iMac G5. Is the only solution to use a fw hd?

BR
Kim

Hi,

Great guide, but having problems using a USB disk. I can’t use the option-command-shift-delete ‘Boot into the next disk’ startup command and have given the wait cursor 10 minutes to go away with no avail.

Any ideas?

James

I tried the DVD/CD master route. Can’t get resulting cdr to work as source. Any suggestions? Thanks, though. I was clueless on leopard partitions prior to reading this.

Does someone think I could possibly format my 20Gb iPod as a GUID Partition Table. And restore Leopard on it ?

I installed it from my USB harddisk. Works also, only got a little Java error, but that’s a problem of my downloaded image i guess Leopard works fine though!

hey Mark,
how did u get it to install from your USB hard drive, i just can’t get it to boot from it. Please help me!!!

Hi!

This article realy helped me to install OS X Leopard. I used an external USB drive on my Intel based MacBook Pro. Because copying with the disk utility didn’t work for me (error 2 and 16), I tried SuperDuper! and that worked perfect!

no problem booting from USB hard drive here either on macbook.

For the people who fixed this on a usb boot

i also have a macbook, can i follow the same steps on a usb drive? then my next question is how i can unpack the dmg to that usb hdd partition in a right manner

please if you know it, reply

Hi guys i made a mistake i dident partition the hdd, but i restorted the drm file to my hdd and rebooted, now my mac wont boot into mac os whats wrong? my drm file is on my usb hdd

Adam,

Do you mean dmg file? Did you restore the drive partition using Disk Utility from the .dmg, or just place the .dmg file onto the drive? I’m a bit confused. Are you attempting to boot from the USB HD and it is not booting properly? You Partition Table may need to be set properly, whether you are running OS X on a PowerPC or Intel Mac. Also, USB HDs are not always reliable for booting, firewire drives are best for this task. Did you try to start up the computer by holding down Option and select the old OS X Tiger that is still on the computer? Or did you accidentally restore the .dmg to the drive on your Mac? If so, you have written over all your system files and are out of luck for booting from OS X Tiger.

hey please if someone can help me i’m getting an error 16 when i’m trying to put the image in my external hard drive???? plz help

I am getting an error when i click on the icon : To install Mac OS X, please use the application provided on the Mac OS X installation disc.

I know i need to select my startup disc and reboot but it doesnt work it just takes me back to tiger.

thanks a lot that really helpt me

same error as josh. anything we can do about this?

Are you trying to install out of the .DMG or a partitioned drive? I have never tried to click the icon in the Auto Start Screen. Did you try to Start Up, holding down Option, then select the Leopard Install Drive?

Steve

I’m getting the same errors as others here.. when trying to restore, first when specifying image format there is no “entire device” option, and I’ve tried every other option including master dvd/cd, read only, etc. to no avail. After clicking the ‘Restore’ button I get one of these errors:

1) “Restore Failure: Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned/scanned for restore”

or, 2) “Restore Failure: Could not validate source - Resource busy”

I’ve tried it with the dmg files pulled from the Leopard DVD, even tried restoring to my partition (10 GB) directly from the Leopard DVD. Nada…

Any ideas?

I’m wondering what version of Disk Utility it is that has the “entire device” option.. maybe the more recent ones (like from Leopard that I am using) have mechanisms built in to keep them from doing just what I’m trying to do, and an older version doesn’t have those mechanisms…. just a thought.

Enable hidden disk image formats in Disk Utility:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050601181738987

To activate the hidden formats, just open the Terminal and enter this command (make sure Disk Utility is not running):

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility advanced-image-options 1

Now launch Disk Utility and try to create a disk image from folder, or convert an existing image (the advanced options are not available for new blank images). In the Save dialog (after choosing a folder), pop up the “Image format” menu and see the additional formats listed. To know more about various formats, try to consult the man page for hdiutil (man hdiutil in the Terminal).

Thank you for this helpful article - it works geat!

Re: gp’s problem,

I had the same issue. I double-clicked the image file (a .cdr in my case) to mount the drive, ejected the drive, then tried restoring again and it worked…..

how long do i have to wait so the whole disk imag restore finishes? cause mine is taking forever…

This is certainly a YMMv sort of solution…

here is how booting from USB worked for me on a strange hardware configuration…

I have a sawtooth G4 Graphite which has undergone many upgrades. I also have a external DVD drive which is Firewire and that does work also,

However… never say never… so I tried this… I connected a USB 500GB SATA hard drive to my third party USB 2.0 PCI buss (via the most wonderful connector). I cloned my Tiger system to that and booted from it…

here are the steps.

Carbon copy cloner… (donation ware)

I did it while the system was live, there were no errors

then I suspected that there would be problems, and Startup Disk in System Preferences does not list the disk.

so I figured to Manually Bless the system

say what?!?!?

Open terminal app (LOL)

first you may want to read the internal documentation

at the command prompt type

man bless

there are a few options…

and some examples

for this assume MYDisc has an OSX system installed (and leave out the spaces in names you make for things… would’ya)

type:

sudo bless –folder /Volumes/MyDisc/System/Library/CoreServices –bootinfo

input your admin user password…

last option will change accordingly
–bootinfo for PPC
–bootefi for MacIntel
if you want to verify this operation —> type:

bless –info /Volumes/MyDisc/

should return approx…

finderinfo[0]: 0 => No Blessed System Folder
finderinfo[1]: 0 => No Blessed System File
finderinfo[2]: 0 => Open-folder linked list empty
finderinfo[3]: 0 => No OS 9 X blessed 9 folder
finderinfo[4]: 0 => Unused field unset
finderinfo[5]: 696742 => OS X blessed folder is /Volumes/Mydisc/System/Library/CoreServices

64-bit VSDB volume id: 0×8E5ECBEBBEB9A43B

then after you think you are happy… restart the machine and hold down option key

The name Mydisc may appear corrupted… (???)

but click it and start from it…

it worked for me…. and I was then able to temporarily use that disk while repairing the other…

I hope it helps someone, and again, YMMV (e.g. a 1.x USB only interface may be too painful)

Hi, thanks for this I have been scouring the net for some idiots guide to installing leopard off my external hard drive and after re-reading yours I have successfully installed it.
Thanks again

Is it possible to do this if you have os x 10.3.9? You say that you must have Tiger, so do I need to first upgrade to tiger to then be able to upgrade to leopard from my external hard drive?

GP and to everybody getting the error “Restore Failure: Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned/scanned for restore”:

Ctrl Click the DMG in the Sidebar of Disk Utility, you will find the option to scan the image in the drop down menu.

Sorry for the late reply, been busy…
Steve

Leotard-

I believe you need Tiger to upgrade to Leopard. But if you install Leopard onto a clean drive (Erase and Install), Tiger is not necessary. You will need to manually transfer user information over to the new copy of Leopard from the Backup of Jaguar after you install.

The reason I chose the Upgrade method was because it preserves User settings and is usually the easiest.

Steve

Everything worked as described until Restore. Repeated got Restore Failure error 16 - resource busy. Restarted Disk Utility, unmounted disk image, etc with no luck. I was able to use Disk Utility to restore directly from the DVD (not the image) to FW partition. I am using G5 with 10.4.11 So is it necessary to create a disk image first? Any ideas about error 16?

i24teen-

You must be trying to restore a drive from itself as a source? You need to follow the steps a little more closely and make a .dmg of the Install Disc, use that as a source for the Restore.

Sorry - not clear. Since I could not figure out how to solve Error 16, I did a Restore with the Leopard Install DVD as the source and a FW volume as the destination. It took about as long (15 min /-) to copy the DVD to the drive as it took to create the original .dmg to the Desktop but it is one less step. I tried to follow your instructions exactly. BTW when i tried to empty Trash with the .dmg in it an error message said it was still in use. Had to restart and then I was able to empty Trash.

Footnote - I successful installed Leopard from FW partition copied with Disk Utility directly from DVD, no intermediate .dmg creation. Reading blogs one suggestion to fix error 16 Restore Failure is to unmount & mount the FW partition. I have not verified.

In 10.5.1, at least, before you can restore the disk image, you have to
Images > Scan Image for Restore…
Now why couldn’t Disk Utility do that for me on the spot?

what would happen if i used a usb hd would it be slower, or would it just not work. i really dont have the money to but another hd i have a 60gb usb hd and a intel macbook running osx 10.4 is it really bad if i do it with a usb hd. also once i do the original start up from the hd, do i have to boot from the hd everytime or does it install

i found an answer to the source image not being imagescan error that gp and steveblue seemed to have.

select the dmg in the disk utility and select the image menu from the menubar. at the bottom you should see scan image for restore. do it and you should be able to restore the image just fine.

i need some help, i have my imac g5 backed up on an external.

however, i want to use this external which has 118.4 gb free space in order to install Leopard.

what should my plan of action be?

should i use this external and back it up with time machine in leopard?

or could installing with this external and losing those files affect my internal hardrive.

basically i don’t wanna lose anything i have. but i really want leopard.

any help appreciated.

thankyou,
lotza

Lotza,

You probably don’t want to lose the backup files, right?

Do you have a Leopard Install Disk?

I would suggest using Disk Utility on the install disk to partition the external drive, careful not to delete the existing partition. Make a new partition, per the instructions in this tutorial for the Leopard Install. Disk Utility in Tiger is not able to partition a drive without formating it first.

If you don;t have a disk and have a .DMG, things get trickier…

thanks steve blue.

i do have an install disc. what do you mean by using Disk Utility on the install disk?

kinda confused.

thanks for your time.
lotza

Thank you for your assistance in this article.

I have created a .dmg file from the Install DVD (by choosing ‘read/write’ from the file-type menu). I have created partitions on my firewire drive, with all of the parameters you suggest in the article (GUID, 10GB, name=”Mac OS X Install DVD”).

PROBLEM: Upon restoring from the .dmg to the ‘Install’ partition, I am receiving error 16 (”Resource is busy.”)

Attempted solution: Re-doing everything except enabling the extra options for creating the .dmg file (this time I used ‘entire device’).

PROBLEM: error (2): No such file or directory. Tried again, error (16): (”Resource is busy.”)

Other notes: Each time, I could not drag the destination partition from the desktop into the restore ‘Destination’ field. I had to drag it from the list on the left column of Disk Utility.

Any solutions?

Thanks!

Unfortunately the process outlined doesn’t work. IA few key steps were left out and error 2 and 16 abound for several people. f someone has a process that actually works could you please post a link here.

@tigeruser: The process worked worked great for me on a PPC Mac mini. Are you sure you created the right kind of partition?

I have the same error. An error (16) occurred while copying. (Resource busy)

I’ve read that ejecting the External HDD, and then re-mounting it would fix the error. But after a few dozen tries it seems it does not. More Googleing.

This worked for me–thanks. I tried also to restore my Leopard disk image file to a (dual layer) DVD, but my Tiger OS doesnt see it as a bootable volume, in particular Disk Utility does not regard it as a volume it can restore to (though I can burn the disk image onto the DVD from the Finder). Any idea how to do this?

I Followed your directions worked perfectly except i get the error “To install Mac OS X, please use the application provided on the Mac OS X installation disc.”

I also noticed a differnece in icons, in your disk utility you had the hard drive icon, mine i have the orange fire wire icon for external hard drives, i think that it wont let me boot b/c it’s not configured to be a bootable hard drive

In addition to a very big thank you for this article,
2 things:

Firstly, I too was getting various combinations of errors (2 and 16)when trying to restore. I finally found that if I mounted the image by CTRL-clicking the icon and choosing “Mount It” from the bottom of the menu, I could then restore in Disk Utility without a problem.

Secondly, I suddenly started wondering whether more useful than having the install disk on an external drive would be having a bootable version of Leopard on an external drive? Is there something I’m missing here? What’s the advantage of having a bootable install disk rather than a bootable OS?

Thanks in advance.

can this be done with vista or xp too?

Javier,

The advantage in having a Bootable Install is mainly for diagnostic and the obvious Install of OS X. It is fastest to install OS X over a Firewire 800 connection. Firewire 400 is faster than off the DVD. This is mainly for Macs with a broken Combo or Superdrive. Or perhaps you backed up the install disk to a DMG. This would mean you cannot burn it back to a standard DVD because of the 4.37GB restriction.

A Bootable OS could run alongside the Bootable Install on a properly partitioned Hard Drive. The advantage here would be the ability to continue work in Applications in the case of a Hard Drive failure in the Internal HD. Making Scheduled Backups with SuperDuper! is great for this purpose.

Michael,

No. Boot Camp is to be used exclusively for the partitioning and Install of Windows on a Mac.

Any idea how to use the partition to update winxp/bootcamp?

This is one great article, I was able to follow the instructions and got it to work. Thanks Steve Blue for this awesome and informative tutorial………

this is the coolest trick installing leopard i ever seen. Thx bro!

Trying to instal Leopard from internal partitions.
I backed up my OS X 10.4.11 files on an external HDD. I also copied the Leopard .dmg file there, too. I set the disk startup to my Tiger 10.4 DVD. Restarted. Used the Tiger DVD to access Disk Utility. I partitioned my internal HDD into 2 volumes. One was 10GB and the other was the remainder of my internal HDD space. In preferences, I made sure the 10GB volume was GUID. I highlighted this volume in the left panel and clicked RESTORE. I mounted the Leopard.dmg. I dragged it to “SOURCE” and then I attempted to drag the 10GB drive to the “destination” but wasn’t able. Disk utility wouldn’t let me drag any of the drives to “destination” for that matter. This of course wouldn’t let me “restore” the 10GB drive as it was grayed out, or at least not clickable yet. I’m sort of in a catch 22 here. Any advice?

Further to Javiers comment

“I suddenly started wondering whether more useful than having the install disk on an external drive would be having a bootable version of Leopard on an external drive?”

I made a disk image as you said, and then had the same idea as Javier. Is it possible to install Leopard from the .dmg onto a partition on a FireWire external HD, and run it as an additional system to Tiger (which would be on internal HD) by booting between OS’s. Could I put Leopard onto a 50G partition on my external HD, and add and delete programs, as I can in Tiger on my internal HD? In other words, use it like a 2nd internal HD with a different OS? By this I don’t mean a “bootable clone” (as in SuperDuper), as I don’t beleive you can add data to the clone? Hope this makes sense.

Billy,

Your idea will work. But I would turn it around, clone Tiger to the external and use that as a backup in case the Leopard Install on the Internal isn’t to your liking. Then you can still use both OS.

Why do you want to do this?

Steve Blue

I too get the resource busy problem…

SOLUTION!:

If you get the “image needs to be scanned” error, double click .dmg to mount it.

But then you will notice if you have the .dmg selected as source it will give the resouce busy error!

When you mount the DMG, the mounted disk will show just under the DMG in the list, but as you may have noticed it doesnt let you drag this to the source box?

BUT it if you Ctrl click/right click on it and choose set as source, it works!

i did everything per the instructions, and when i restart it takes me back to my desktop every time. os x 10.5 wont boot from my fw drive! please help!!!!

I did everything as stated. However when I restore the partitioned drive, it gives me a “restore failure - error 6 occurred while copying. (Device not configured).” I am not sure what else to do. Someone please help. Thanks

Hi, Ive followed all your instructions fine but when I click on the “install Mac OS X” a window pops up telling me I cant install from this drive (my FW external HD)…?

What I noticed is that your screen grab shows a logo of a DVD on your installer window and mine shows and external HD logo. How did you get your Mac to recognize your external HD as a DVD?

Thanks

Ok, Ive done it, I was just trying to open the file om my external HD and not boot from that drive, duh!

Leotard: I installed from version 10.3.9 straight to Leopard and it worked fine, all my files are still there too…

Thanks 4 this guide blue!

I assume given the timing that you’re trying to install the DMG file that Apple just published for Leopard. I had the same problem, and the solution was to Eject the disk image before trying to burn it or restore it to a disk partition, otherwise it is “busy” when you try to Restore it to a partition in Disk Utility to get the thing install-able.

after a few hours of googling around and a bunch of errors that everyone else got… its finally ‘copying blocks’

all i had to do was format my external to be Mac Extended

cheers for this article! =)

Great guide, very precise, I used an external HD connected via USB, worked a treat! thankyou.

I am able to restore the image file (mine is a .iso) to a partition on my external. It is usb, but tiger recognizes it as a bootable volume. However, when I try to boot into the backed up install dvd image, I just get the apple loading screen thing forever. I have left it for an hour and nothing happens. Any ideas?

I have been trying to get this to work for a long time but ran into many problems and seem to have gotten a little help from here as well.

http://www.macosx-forum.com/?p=5

Thanks for you help steve!

Hey, get this…. macbook, with a broken optical drive, a G5 (powerPC) with working drive. empty external usb drive.
i have a copy of leopard bought legit. Leopard installed properly on g5 then tried to install via target disk mode in both directions on the macbook and no luck. eventually went and deleted evrything in the hope that a new install might work better but it said there maybe a problem with my hd in macbook so bought a new replacement HD!!

found ur site and did as u instructed but still no luck. it seems that after the apple symbol and chime and the spinning icon it turns into a “no-entry” sign. so even after leaving it for ages nothing.

so now i have an expensive white piece of plastic which turns on to show me a question mark folder!! a dvd with no where to go, and an almost empty, bar the copy of leopard external hd. …. bargain.

help

Olly,

Try to run the Install Disk again, but instead of doing the Install, open Startup Disk and see if the drive w/ Leopard is there, then select it. It may just be the new OS is not mounted properly, thus producing the Folder w/ the question mark at startup.

Steve

sorry confusion…
the no-entry sign appears when trying to load off the external hd, so i havent even got to the install part yet!
heard that target disc mode wont work from a g5 to macbook cos of the partion table problems, so meeting a friend with another macbook today to try if hers. if no luck i’ll be back!

Finally managed to get it done via target disc mode. Thanks for all the help and informative page. some notes: USB hd’s with no power adapter dont work, because they switch off off for miliseconds during startup; PPC to Intel doesnt work, find similar computers to work between!
cheers

hi, i’ve done this before and its create for a backup of the install dvd, but i keep the firewire drive connected all the time, and on startup the install auto mount finder window appears, just wondering if you know how to stop that opening, seeing as ive already got leopard installed.
cheers

Great guide, but I’m getting the could not find any scan information error. What you said to do about scanning it did not work, I used verify in Leopard to check it.

My friend had a family version of OSX and he created a .iso file for me off of it because my disk drive isnt working. How would i turn that into a .dmg, should i mount it then use Disk Utility?
I have already partitioned my drive and backed up tiger, the only problem is when i tried to use the .iso and restore it to the partition it wont work. Please help

Thanks for this helpful step-by-step. I used an .iso and restored directly from that (note that it has to be mounted for Disk Utility to allow this, so lock the file first). It worked quite well after I’d wrestled with trying to created a dmg from a DVD that booted fine in one Mac, but not the other. I went back to the original .iso and all was well.

i dont know late i am on this, but my experience was that it only worked to restore if you unchecked “erase destination”. dont know why

nevermind N. Miller has the real reason it worked.

everything worked up until the reboot into the external firewire. It goes through to the Select a Destination screen and the internal hard drive does not show up! any help?

I have a USB only drive. Will it work?

Remington,

If you have an Intel Mac, you can boot from USB. I still only rely on Firewire though.

Steve

For those getting the resource error:

I was getting the same error and as someone pointed out you need to mount and than unmount the .dmg file and it will work. So basically what I did was mount the dmg file and follow all the steps, but before I pressed the restore button I unmounted the dmg and it worked.

Folks, to restore the .dmg file to a device, there are more tools available, most of each eat up any error messages. To get the messages, restore from the command line; I’ve tried the ‘asr’ command, which can save/restore images from/to volumes. But even this didn’t succeed to restore the .dmg for me, telling me the source is an unknown type.

My fallback is the ‘dd’ command, which doesn’t ask so much :-). To use, enter ’sudo dd if= of=’. To get the right , use ‘diskutil list’. To write to the volume it must be unmounted, for example from ‘disk utility’, right click the desired volume and unmount it.

took a few tries but this worked great, used usb harddrive for the boot as i didn’t want to format my large firewire drive, and it still worked fine. only problem i encountered was after leopard was installed, and i used bootcamp to install windows, i couldn’t use the restored hdd copy of leopard to install the drivers as windows doesnt recognise the ose filesystem, i’m in the process of attempting to restor onto a fat 32 filesystem, unbootable to mac i know but just to get the drivers onto windows.

Apple…

Before i got my new assignment i never worked with Mac alot, but here at the agency i currently work 70% of the company is Apple. I really got to like Apple and Mac OS X. I already did a full company roll out from 10.4.x Tiger -> 10.5.4 Leopard on my o…

i was also getting the “scan information” error using Disk Utility in leopard.

control-clicking on the image did not reveal a “scan” option

what seems to be working is to uncheck “erase destination” under the Destination field on the restore tab. it’s copying files now.

I’ve got a trouble…. I’ve done everything as it”s written in the article, the opened my image, pressed restart… wait a while and nothing happens, Tiger simply loaded as usual… I also tried to restart with command button holded and C button too. Please, hepl me…..

there are some mistakes, cause I was in a hurry..

And once more, my Startup Disk couldn’t recognise my external hdd…

Well Basil seems to have a pretty good head on his/her shoulders. I successfully installed Leopard from my Seagate USB HD. I just created the .DMG file and created the partition as per the above tutorial. The only thing I did different was I restored the .dmg file to the new partition using SuperDuper! It was fast and easy. Followed the rest of the tutorial and the Leopard install only took 10 mins. Hope this helps

How do I do an “erase and install” when I boot from the external hard drive?

JHess, Follow the on screen instructions for the Install until you get to a screen that has a button that says “customize” I believe. Click that button and the install options will be in the next window. Choose Erase and Install.

thank you all very much just got my g5 and installing the OS right now so far so good, bigest thanks is to steveblue i think he is the one who made the post

well…

i have to …………..

Thanks thanks and thanks again

i have no dvd in the mac, so i have used a external hdd in a 2.0 usb box

go to the boot camp now for my sun school work

For everyone who is having trouble installing leopard from an external USB drive on G5 or G4 PPC, i found a workaround.
1. Follow the steps to put the dmg image on an external drive.
2. Boot from tiger cd’s
3. Within the boot screen, open disk utility…
1.) Erase your main drive
2.) Restore your main drive with your externals dmg
3.) Goto startup disk and select your main drive which has the new dmg on it
4.) Restart using that drive
4. Leopard install screen will open but the only one you will be able to install to is the external, which isnt allowed
5. Start disk utility from within the leopard boot
6. Split the partition into two sections so that you have one partition with the dmg and one thats empty
7. You can now go back and install leopard to the second partition you just created.

-Cheers.

Thanks Ilanbigfoot
It worked.

Quick question for everyone who has successfully installed Leopard this way…

During installation, did the installer try to perform the consistency check?

You know, this part: http://iuseapple.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/installleopard09.jpg

(Mine didn’t.)

Hi all,
Thanks for the tutorial.
I wonder if I can install Leopard in an external FW disk, without partitioning it. Is the partitioning really necessary?
Thanks, and have a great 2009!

Barry,

Partitioning is only necessary if there is something on the disk that you want to keep.

I installed using my FireWire iPod, without doing ANY partitioning (I just erased the iPod, used it to install Leopard, and then brought it back to its original state using iTunes).

Hi everyone. I would just like to make it clear that older /non-intel based Macs CAN NOT boot from USB but only FIREWIRE. If you have a firewire based ipod, like Barry…Leopard startup folder will show up in System Preference under startup disk after mounting and restoring the image onto ipod (ipod being the destination and Image being “Source” (.dmg or .OSI)) in Restore tab in Disk Utility. Also you might have to force ipod to disk mode if installation halts. Best if you erase ipod from disk utility before proceeding with task (DO NOT ERASE Destination!) . End ipodhelper in Activity Monitor and be SURE to close out iTunes. Note: if partitioning in Disk Utility for some reason GUID Partition is only for INTEL base makes…Older MACs keep Partition Scheme Apple Partition Scheme.

Hi everyone. The first time i tried this method it worked all right. ( installing 10.5 from external firewire HD, even an ipod). But I had to do it again, and now the installing program is telling me for the third time that it couldn’t “validate the content of “hewlettPackardDrivers”bundle”.
Can anyone help?

I had the problem gp had w/ scanning/Resource Busy Error. I found that all you have to do is let the OS verify the dmg. If you skip the verification it won’t work.

If your Installing this from an Downloaded .DMG file and you get through the whole process but you get stuck on the infamous ERROR 16 This is what you do double click the the downloaded .DMG file let it mount, then eject it then restore as the instructions tell you to. I dont know why this works but it did for me.

Thank You……………. I really appreciate all of your help. This was a challenge however with your step by step installation, I was able to install it. Thanks again!!!

Hi, i have a macbook and i think my DVD drive is broken, it reads stuff but when i tried to install Leopard it kept telling me to clean the cd, so I couldn’t install it. I have one external HD with all my school projects in it, but it says that to make a partition i have to format the drive. so my question is does upgrading to leopard erase everything on the macbook’s hd or is there a way to keep the files intact? (should I just get ANOTHER HD? or borrow a friends: if its possible to restore it to normal after im done?)

thank you

I had a headcrash on my Macbook harddrive and had to replace it with a new (yet unformatted) drive. Unfortunatly my DVD drive is broken as well so, so I could not install the system from the leopard DVD.

Thanks to this great guide and your help I managed to clone the Leopard Install DVD to my external firewire drive. My Macbook boots from the firewire device and starts installing leopard just as it was the dvd - but: it does not recognizie the new unformatted internal harddrive. So I can not install leopard onto it.

Does anyone know how to make the macbook recognize the new harddrive? Thanks for any help!

I’ve put the .dmg on the partition and restarted… the mac os x leopard partition came up and everything appeared to be working fine until I hit the Install button, it said It couldn’t find the files needed to complete installation… HELP!

Thank you DC! Works perfectly!

[...] iUseApple » Blog Archive » How to Install Leopard from External Firewire Hard Drive June 14, 2009 Posted by Al in Tech. Tags: installation, leopard, mac trackback iUseApple » Blog Archive » How to Install Leopard from External Firewire Hard Drive [...]

Is there a way to do this whole process without an external drive. Can I restore it to my intenal drive on my laptop and then install leopard on that same drive?