General Mac hardware discussions: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook
Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook
by Sandovh - 9/10/05 8:07 PMFirst of all, my sincere apologies for having posted this question as a reply on another issue by mistake.
I have a Mac G3 Powerbook, 333Mhz, 4GB Hd, 8MB Video, CD. Everytime I try to upgrade my X OS operating system from 10.2 version to a newer version I get a message saying I do not have enough HD space. I have transferred quite a few files to a portable drive to clear space but still get the message. Is there something else I can do to get the upgrade?
Thanks,
Sandovh
The first answer
by mrmacfixit
- 9/11/05 7:12 AM
In reply to: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook by Sandovh
that springs to mind is for you to purchase a larger HD.
The next question is "What OS are you attempting to upgrade to"?
There is a limit as to the version of OS X that is compatible with this laptop. You are going to max it out at 10.3.9 (Panther) Memory is a consideration too, how much do you have installed?
New HD's can be purchased for a reasonable sum and some suppliers even install the drive, move your original stuff to it and put your old drive into a Firewire enclosure. That last bit is not going to help you as I don't think you have firewire on that machine. Does this machine have a Bronze Keyboard? If so, putting your old drive into an enclosure that fits into the CD/Battery slot is also an option.
Another consideration for that machine is a processor upgrade and lots of RAM. Both are possible and reasonably easy to do.
If you really do not want to spend any money at all, the absolutely, positively, definitely NOT recommended way, is to Boot from the installer CD and choose Format and Install. This WILL KILL every piece of data that you have on that machine. It will install your new OS though. DO NOT DO THIS!, pretty please.
Hope this helps, let us know what the answers are
P
Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook
by BobCPhoto - 9/16/05 6:04 AM In reply to: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook by SandovhI would suggest that you check to see how much space the new upgrade requires as to what the total space you have on your hard drive. It just simply may be too large for your existing drive. If that is the case there are only two possible solutions -
1) Upgrade to a larger version of the PowerbBook which will have a much larger hard drive.
2) Get an Apple repairmnan to see if he can install a larger hard drive for you that would have room for your new OS 10.2 and the other material you plan to use on the hard drive AND then get a portable disk drive, such as a LaCie (200 Gb or less) disk drive, to carry with you to store your material on which you are working. Most of these use either (or both) a USB / USB-2 connector or some use a Firewire connector if your computer will accept it. Fire wire is usually faster. You may need a USB hub if you have only one USB outlet on the side of your PowerBook.
Good luck in your project.
Bob Curtis
Panther at best
by artbrymer - 9/16/05 7:05 AM In reply to: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook by SandovhHi,
It sounds like you're running a Lombard Powerbook, which can run OSX Panther, but... "crawl" may in fact be a more appropriate term. Why do you want to upgrade? Is there a program you want to run?
Speaking of running, you're going to run out of space very quickly on a 4GB drive. Upgrading to Panther will accelerate the process. Additionally, should you choose to invest in a larger hard drive, I believe you may have to do "special formatting" on it so the OS sees the drive correctly. I know that on the Wallstreet (the model before yours), drives larger than 7.5 GB must be partitioned so that OSX resides on the first partition of the drive, and that partition MUST be 7.5 GB or less. Another space-saving tip: when installing, you can choose to omit some utilities and language localizations, but in Panther, you will still be squeezed quite a lot on this machine.
I recommend finding a decent used PowerBook on ebay or some other venue, like perhaps Craigslist.org if you can. I have a 400 MHz G4 Powerbook Mercury and, if loaded with enough RAM, this machine performs very well for most tasks. It's not at all bad for a four-year-old computer. I have updated the hard drive to a 40GB (I acquired the machine in dire need of repair, which made it very affordable) and brought the RAM to 512 (though it can go to 1GB). On your machine, the most you can go to is 512MB. That's the thing, really. If you want to run software published after your machine was released, you will need to perform some hardware upgrades anyway. And while you're upgrading, you should seriously consider all of your options.
If you are interested in upgrading to Tiger (OSX 10.4), Apple does not support this OS on your machine. There is, however, a utility you can use called XPostFacto to install Tiger. While I know that XPostFacto works well with Panther on the Wallstreet PowerBooks, I have no experience with Tiger on a laptop such as yours.
You'll need a larger HD
by danindavis - 9/19/05 5:41 PM In reply to: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook by SandovhThe typical 10.3 installation is about 3 GB - there is little chance that you can install it on this HD, especially since you probably already have programs and files take take up more than 1 GB.
There is no way that you can easily run 10.3 on this small space, even if you are somehow able to install it.
I would get at least a 20GB drive, install it in the G3, and put the old drive in an external USB enclosure, so that you can use the old drive as a backup.
Good luck!
Dan
Upgrading the Lombard
by redmage0326 - 9/25/05 8:17 PM In reply to: Trouble upgrading Mac OS 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook by SandovhYour description indicates that you have a 1999 model PowerBook, otherwise known as a ''Lombard.'' Given that fact, the best OS possible without outside interference is OS X 10.3 Panther.
Panther's default install requires 2.1 GB of free space. A full install needs about 3.2 GB, and my best guess is that you can't make enough free space to satisfy this requirement no matter what you do.
As others have suggested, you could move your current MacOS installation to a larger drive. An easy way out, for sure, but it could cost you time and money.
You could also try disabling the default ''Archive and Install'' option when setting up Panther as an upgrade. Your system folders and core applications should be updated; and your user settings should be left intact.
The best solution, however, may be this: Back up your Users folder and any downloaded applications that you may have, and then format and install Panther. You can then copy the data you retrieved back to your hard disk.
Good luck,
redmage0326
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