[riko_uk]

Hey guys and girls. Im new to the Mac OS so I apologise if these questions are a bit thick!

My mate gave me an old G4 tower as a christmas present. As far as I can make out its a G4 400Mhz Gigabit Ethernet model. It has been upgraded with 2 20gig hard drives and 512MB (4x128 sticks) of ram. It has been completely wiped and is now running 10.3.9.

I was thinking of upgrading to tiger and have a couple of questions

Is it worth it on this machine? Is 10.4 different enough to warrent an upgrade?

I have seen some posts that recommend making sure that the firmware is up to date. Checking system profilier it seems mine is quite old, version 3.xxx . Will this have to be upgraded? Its running panther fine at the moment. Also i have heard the some DIMMs can be disabled after the upgrade is there an easy way to check if my memory will work?

If the firmware should be updated I need advice on how best to install OS9. I have the 2 grey cds that came with the mac. Software install and software restore. Could I install os 9 onto my empty second hard drive?

sorry for the long post and thanks for any help

graham

[shunt]

1. yes, Tiger is worth it....many new features, generally boots faster, more responsive.

2. If you're on Panther, you're firmware is probably allset. Check the Applesite to be sure, go to the support tab, and do a search. (lots of good info there BTW)

3. Yes, you can install OS9 on the empty drive, matter of fact it keeps things nice and clean if something goes wrong, and you need to reinstall. When OSX tries to start classic it will find the OS9 system folder, no problem.

Just put the OS9 CD in, doubleclick the installer, and after a couple of OK's or Agree's, it will let you choose where you want to install it. If you try to install on the same drive as OSX, then you must boot from the OS9 CD.