NOTE - I have also posted this problem on the Apple Discussions forums:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/we...3803@.68a3e05d
HARDWARE:
- Quicksilver G4 1Ghz Dual Processor (firmware is up to date)
- 512MB RAM (factory installed)
- Superdrive (factory installed)
- 80GB ATA internal hard disk (factory installed)
- Maxtor 60GB ATA internal hard disk (taken from my previous Mac and installed as a slave drive to the above 80GB disk)
- Canon scanner, connected directly to one of the USB ports
- Apple 3G iPod dock, connected to the Firewire port
- Apple keyboard, MS Intellimouse. Griffin iMic and a Formac monitor are connected to the G4 via an Iogear KVM switch (shared with a PC, all work fine)
- Ethernet crossover cable, connected to my PC.
- No other cards or devices are installed.
SOFTWARE:
- Retail Panther disks ('Version 10.3.2' is printed on the CD's)
- OS X 10.1.5 (with no Classic/OS9) currently installed on the G4, on both hard disks
THE PROBLEM:
I cannot install Panther. Every time I try, the installer freezes at different stages of the process:
- During boot-up from the Panther CD; OR
- When clicking through the various set up screens; OR
- When checking the target volume; OR
- At any time during the actual installation process (the furthest I got was around 70%).
When the installer freezes during boot-up (grey apple screen), the spinning circle of lines stops and the caps lock key will not light up when pressed.
When it freezes during setup or installation, the caps lock key will not light up when pressed, the cursor will not move and the blue progress bar stops - but, oddly, the animated 'blue fluid' effect in the bar continues to cycle.
I have tried the following temporary changes to my set-up, all of which have made no noticeable difference:
- Connecting the monitor, Apple keyboard and (original) mouse directly to the G4, rather than through the KVM switch and disconnecting the iPod dock and scanner
- Disconnecting the Maxtor 60Gb slave drive
- Replacing the Superdrive with a Sony CD drive taken from my PC, then running the Panther discs in this drive
- Using OS X 10.1.5's disk utility on my slave drive to erase the 80GB drive, then trying to install Panther on the completely reformatted 80Gb drive (I thought this was the best way of ensuring that the installation wasn't failing because of any disk/permissions issues, as there are no means of repairing permissions in OS X 10.1.5 that I am aware of)
Normally when I try to install Panther, I insert the Installer Disk 1, open the 'Install Mac OS X' application, click the Restart button, enter my admin password and reboot, as instructed. I have also tried inserting the disk, NOT opening 'Install Mac OS X', and instead rebooting from the Apple menu and holding the 'C' key down to force the G4 to boot from the install disk. When I do this, it doesn't freeze as before - it 'hangs' on the grey apple screen and the spinning circle of lines just keeps spinnning, without ever going any further. Does this provide any insight to what might be going wrong?
An IT support contractor who looks after our Macs at the place I work suggested that I take out the 80GB hard disk, take it into work, connect it up inside a Mac there, install Panther, then put the disk back into my G4 at home. Could this work? (I somehow doubt it, as there are no G4 dual processors where I work, only G5's and single processor G4's).
I have posted this problem before on the Apple Discussion forums, but (obviously) I still haven't solved it. It was suggested that my retail Panther discs were faulty and that I should obtain replacements from Apple. I couldn't find any information on Apple's website to say how I go about replacing my Panther disks so I decided to make do with OS X 10.1.5 until I had time to deal with the problem again.
Since then, I have used the same disks to successfully install Panther on my old G3 Powerbook, which surely indicates that the disks are NOT faulty and do not need replacing? (Please note - I have no intention to break any software license by using my disks to install Panther on two machines. The Powerbook is not really powerful enough to run OS X comfortably, so I have erased the disk and re-installed OS 9)
I would really appreciate any suggestions to try and fix this problem, or at least diagnose what is actually going wrong during the Panther installation.
Thanks for your time!
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