Tiger vs. Leopard with a G4?

I've discovered through this forum that 'Leopard' won't install on a G4 'Quicksilver' 733 MHz machine.
Would someone please tell me the latest version of OSX I can use with a G4 'Quicksilver,' 733 MHz, 1GB of RAM, with a 'GeForce 2' TwinView graphics card?
Thanks.
J.C.

Well, though it is not supported, you can install leopard on it if you have another PowerPC mac that is fully compatible. You can install it VIA target disk mode. AFAIK this does not violate the EULA. I needed another test mac at the office, we had a 667 Digital Audio sitting around, I installed leopard on it, its just that some features may or may not work.

Similar Messages

  • Can I run Tiger or Leopard with these specs? + why is computer so slow?

    I have an ibook dual USB with a 600 MHz Power PC G3 processor, 256 MB SDRAM. Right now I have 3.53 GB available on the hard drive. I need to be able to run Tiger on it for my work as an online writing tutor and freelance writer. I send files to Windows users, so I'd like to be able to run Leopard when it appears.
    Is there any way I can update this computer--more memory, faster processor?--so that it will run these operating systems without taking a million years and/or crashing frequently?
    Right now, it's running extremely slowly as is. For example, I just tried to open Systems Profiler to give more info about the computer, and after 2 minutes it still hadn't opened.
    I'm thinking I should spring for a new laptop when Leopard comes out, or maybe get one now with Tiger before my computer becomes totally fried.
    Advice? Thanks!

    Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
    What is the hard drive capacity? You are running with it very full right now. I recommend keeping at least 5 GB available. Maybe you could do a bit of housecleaning to make a little more space available?
    I don't recommend installing Tiger on a G3 iBook. In my opinion, OS X 10.3.9 is the optimal installation for the 600 MHz iBook.
    How long has it been since you did any hard drive maintenance? If it's been awhile, try booting into Safe Mode. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
    You will see your normal desktop. Once completely started up in Safe Mode, restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
    Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). Repair permissions on it.
    See if a little hard drive maintenance helps speed things up a bit.
    Additional RAM would help the speed a mite, but a new MacBook is likely the wiser choice.

  • Upgrading mac mini from tiger to leopard with broken DVD drive (long)

    bonjour.
    I have a macmini (1.42PPC) with a broken DVD drive running tiger on which i would like to install leopard (from scratch). I have a retail DVD of leopard, and a macbook. Other equipment includes a PSP and an 8Gb memory stick duo, usb cables, a 40Gb ipod with firewire cable. Wireless keyboard and mouse.
    I've created a bootable image of my leopard DVD onto the 8Gb memory stick in the PSP using the macbook. I can plug the PSP into the macbook and the memory stick mounts as the leopard install DVD. I run InstallOSX and i'm prompted to reboot. Upon rebooting, my macbook boots from the memory stick in the PSP attached via USB and the language option menu of the install process appears. So far so good. I shutdown the macbook.
    I then take my bootable image of my leopard DVD and plug it into the macmini. It automounts, i run InstallOSX and i'm prompted to reboot and the macmini restarts.
    Unfortunately, the macmini reboots from it's internal HDD, and not the memory stick attached via USB so the installation fails.
    Is there a way i can force the macmini to boot or reboot from the USB drive? I only have a wireless keyboard. Does the macmini in fact support booting from a USB device at all?
    I don't know much about the firmware shipped with the macmini, and can not access it during startup to take a look as i have a wireless keyboard. Can i access the firmware from the booted macmini to change the boot device, like i can with a Sun Solaris box (eeprom)
    Could there be another solution that wouldn't involve playing with the firmware?
    I don't have the option of buying additional equipement.
    Any thoughts on this problem would be welcome.
    best wishes
    jack
    ps. I added (long) to topic subject, not to phish, but to save others' time, as it's quite a long and boring post

    thanks for your advice, however this is all but impossible as i have a wireless keyboard which doesn't permit me boot into anything but the OS, as the keyboard and bluetooth drivers don't load early enough in the boot process.
    however, i did find a firewire cable, so this is what i did:
    booted the macmini in target mode and added a 10Gb partition to it from the macbook, onto which i restored the leopard DVD image
    booted the mac mini normally, and it mounted my new partition. I just ran the install from there et voila

  • G5 Dual Core with ATI X1900GT - upgrade to FCS2, Tiger or Leopard?

    Hi everyone,
    I am little confused what to do. So, maybe somebody can advise me what it would be the best.
    Here is the situation:
    I am still using my G5 Dual Core 2.0 with an ATI X1900GT card, 8.5GB RAM and Decklink SP (as below states). I intend to use it till the end of this year, and then to switch to the fastest at that moment Mac Pro. Now, I have 10.4.11 and FCS-1 with almost all filters from Noise Industries. Everything works perfect.
    But I would like to upgrade to FCS-2, especially because of Motion3 new features. The questions are:
    1. Stay with Tiger and do the upgrade to FCS-2? And after that how the Motion3 will work? With similar speed? Or better, maybe worse? (I am not afraid about Final Cut - it shouldn't be any problem, but what about Motion?)
    2. Upgrade the system to Leopard, and then upgrade the FCS?
    But what about the graphic card drivers? On the Ati/AMD web site there are still (from over a year) drivers for Tiger and not for Leopard. Without the proper drivers it could be a problem to install the FCS. Few months ago, when I was changing the startup disk for WD Raptor, I did the clean system installation and tried to install FCS-1. But I forgotten about installing the ATI drivers. When I tried to install, the FCS shows the info that this computer doesn't have the graphic card which support Quartz Extreme. Of course, after installing those drivers everything works OK.
    So, how it could be with Leopard?
    3. Will the all filters (I mean filter from Noise Industries) work fine in Motion and in FCP?
    4. Will the old Motion project open correct in Motion3? I use the old project quite often.
    +For those upgrades I can use another (cloned) startup disk to avoid the "dramatic" situation.+
    I appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
    Marek.

    Thanks for all replies.
    It looks that it is not a bad idea to stay with 10.4.11, and upgrade only the FCS.
    I will do this on my clone disk, and check if everything works fine.
    But, is it possible to install Motion3 (from FCS2 upgrade disks) and leave the Motion2 on the same disk being installed? (I suppose no, but asking just in case)
    I checked the specification of the Noise Industries - filters work fine in both system Tiger and Leopard (most of them I am using now, except of those filter which need FCP6 and Motion3), so I think I will stay with Tiger.
    Peter, do you know what capabilities exactly I can loose staying with Tiger? Do you use those filters (or some of them)?
    Marek.

  • Upgrade from tiger to leopard on an Imac with no intel duo???

    Does anyone know if you can upgrade from Tiger to Leopard to an iMac with no Intel Core Duo?
    It's the third generation of iMac's right before the duo came out? I want to upgrade but not sure if it will work/

    Absolutely! The only OS that needs intel is Snow Leopard, 10.6.xx You can certainly upgrade to the last iteration of Leopard [10.5.8.combo update|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1058com boupdate.html] without any problem. Just make sure you have maxed out your RAM.

  • AI have an iPad and iPhone but am stuck with Tiger and Leopard. Will I stir be able to get my email on my PowerBook if I after I upgrade to iCloud?  I don't have the cash to upgrade the mac right now.

    I have an iPad and iPhone but am stuck with Tiger and Leopard on my old powerbook G4.  Will I still be able to get my email on my PowerBook after I upgrade to iCloud?  I don't have the cash to upgrade the mac right now.  Just wondering what my email options are.  Thank You.

    You will be able to get your mail on the PowerBook. The calendars (iCal) will not sync; any events added to iPad and/or iPhone will not sync with the Mac but will sync with each other (that is: the mobile devices which are on iCloud). My  MacBook Pro (Lion) and iPad2 (iOS5) sync fine; I still get my Mail on iBook G4, MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard) and iMac (Snow Leopard). 
    Message was edited by: kennethfromtoronto

  • Upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard with retail DVD.

    Apologies if this has been posted before, but I've not been able to find it when searching.
    I'm going to be upgrading an iMac from Tiger to Snow Leopard, using the retail DVD. When I boot from it, it only gives me the option to install, and there's no indication that it will be upgrading rather than installing a new copy.
    Can you upgrade Tiger to Snow Leopard with this DVD or would I have to do a clean install? If I can upgrade, is it normal that it isn't telling me it's going to do an upgrade?
    Thanks all.

    The Snow Leopard installer is somewhat optimized for updating an existing system: it uses data gathered from the old system to decide what to install, its network settings to attempt to access an Apple database of incompatible apps to supplement the list on the DVD, & other useful things.
    It even does the equivalent of Disk Utility's verify disk step before writing anything to the HD & does the actual upgrade as root user, making permissions issues a moot point.
    There is no reason to hesitate to use it in this way. It is greatly improved compared to earlier OS installers.

  • Client Upgraded from Tiger to Leopard Can No Longer Connect to Tiger Server

    I just finished upgrading a G5 2GHz DP Powermac from Tiger to Leopard. This was an Archive and Install upgrade with importing the old settings. After verifying the account migration, including .Mac connectivity, and fixing all 3rd party software compatibilities/upgrades, I tried to connect to our Tiger 4.11 server by clicking on the server's Icon in the Shared section of the Finder Sidebar. The finder then switches to browse the the server for shares: "Connecting..." is displayed under the tool bar, with a "Share Screen..." and "Connect As..." buttons to the right.
    At this point the "Connecting..." remains displayed with the spinning circle in the bottom right of the Finder window.... spinning. This situation continues for several minutes until is seems the system gives up.
    If I click on the Path button on the Tool Bar, and go up to the Shared level, ALL the Shares on the Network are displayed, including all the Tiger Client machine shares. I can click on the triangle beside the Tiger Client's icon, and all the drives and home directories on the Mac are listed. All the client shares can be accessed without any issues. NOTE: There are no other Leopard clients on the LAN.
    Prior to the Leopard upgrade, this client could connect to the Tiger server as well. All the other clients on the LAN can access the Tiger server also.
    On the Leopard client I have tried clicking and the "Connect As..." button and using the menu "Connect to Server" and specifying the server's IP, and I get the same "Connecting..." message with a "non-connecting" result.
    I can only assume that somehow the Account Name and password are not being passed correctly. But, using "Connect As..." should resolve that. However, "Connect As..." does not give me a user/password window!
    If I check the AFP Access log on the Server, the only messages displayed are "Mounted Volume..." No messages in the error log, and no messages in the "Connections" section.
    Can anyone help me figure out why the Leopard client can not connect to the Tiger Server?
    My apologies if the description of my problem is a bit disjointed. I have been thrown into server admin and am learning "Trial by Fire".
    Any help or suggestions on how to resolve this issue will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks
    Gary
    Message was edited by: Gary Sumlak

    OK. A quick update.
    After waiting for about 10 minutes for the rotating circle in the bottom right corner to stop, I was able to click on the "Connect As..." button. It took another 10 minutes, but the Connect As window eventual popped up. I entered the Userid and Password (saving to Keychain) and was able to see all the sharepoints on the the server. I browsed all the connected drives and folders without issue.
    I then disconnected from the server. Reviewing the AFP logs on the server shows messages for the connection Login and Logout.
    I then tried to reconnect to the server, and again another 10 minutes wait, although this time the Leopard client eventually connected automatically with the proper User, as per the AFP logs confirms.
    Although, the client can now connect to the server, for it to take 10 minutes will be unacceptable to management, not to mention the end user. Tiger clients can connect in a couple seconds!
    Is there a way to reduce the Leopard login time to, say, a couple seconds, like it does with the Tiger clients?
    Again, any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks
    Gary

  • I don't have a dual-layer drive, can I install Tiger or Leopard?

    Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
    Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard come on what appear to be larger than 4.7 GB discs. This does not mean you need a dual layer drive to install them. Some Macs capable of installing Tiger or Leopard came with a built-in CD-RW, or CD-ROM drive. For those a compatible Firewire DVD drive for booting Mac OS X can work instead of replacing the internal drive. Tiger also came in a limited edition Media Exchange Program CD installer package, which you may be able to find in the open market. The limitation for each is dependant on other hardware:
    1. If your Mac shipped new with no Firewire, you may be able to install Tiger a special third party addon software known as XPostFacto.
    2. If your Mac shipped new with less than 867 Mhz built-in processor (including dual processor 800 MHz or less), you may be able to install Leopard with a special third party addon software known as Leopard Assist.
    3. If your Mac shipped with a processor upgrade card installed, and #2 is true, a firmware update may be available from the processor upgrade card vendor that allows Leopard's installation.
    4. Tiger needs at least 256 MB of RAM.
    Leopard needs at least 512 MB of RAM.
    If you have a lot of dashboard widgets, you may need to increase RAM to improve performance on either operating system. The RAM needs to follow Apple's specs to ensure smooth operation. Only get RAM with a lifetime warranty.
    5. Officially you need for Tiger:
    "At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools" from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514
    And officially for Leopard you need:
    "9 GB of available disk space or more" from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3759
    However, I would add to that if your hard drive doesn't have at least 15% of the drive free in addition to that, you may experience significant slowing down in the operating system function. This number has been arbitrarily discovered by many users.
    6. When installing Tiger or Leopard, if your machine shipped with Panther (10.3) or earlier, be sure to get the retail Tiger or retail Leopard.
    The Tiger installer is a san serif gray and white X with a spotlight on the center of the X on a black background.
    The Leopard installer is a san serif black and gray X on a pink galaxy centered on a black background.
    This is the 1st version of this tip. It was submitted on Dec 23, 2009 by a brody.
    Do you want to provide feedback on this User Contributed Tip or contribute your own? If you have achieved Level 2 status, visit the User Tips Library Contributions forum for more information.

    Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
    Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard come on what appear to be larger than 4.7 GB discs. This does not mean you need a dual layer drive to install them. Some Macs capable of installing Tiger or Leopard came with a built-in CD-RW, or CD-ROM drive. For those a compatible Firewire DVD drive for booting Mac OS X can work instead of replacing the internal drive. Tiger also came in a limited edition Media Exchange Program CD installer package, which you may be able to find in the open market. The limitation for each is dependant on other hardware:
    1. If your Mac shipped new with no Firewire, you may be able to install Tiger a special third party addon software known as XPostFacto.
    2. If your Mac shipped new with less than 867 Mhz built-in processor (including dual processor 800 MHz or less), you may be able to install Leopard with a special third party addon software known as Leopard Assist.
    3. If your Mac shipped with a processor upgrade card installed, and #2 is true, a firmware update may be available from the processor upgrade card vendor that allows Leopard's installation.
    4. Tiger needs at least 256 MB of RAM.
    Leopard needs at least 512 MB of RAM.
    If you have a lot of dashboard widgets, you may need to increase RAM to improve performance on either operating system. The RAM needs to follow Apple's specs to ensure smooth operation. Only get RAM with a lifetime warranty.
    5. Officially you need for Tiger:
    "At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools" from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514
    And officially for Leopard you need:
    "9 GB of available disk space or more" from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3759
    However, I would add to that if your hard drive doesn't have at least 15% of the drive free in addition to that, you may experience significant slowing down in the operating system function. This number has been arbitrarily discovered by many users.
    6. When installing Tiger or Leopard, if your machine shipped with Panther (10.3) or earlier, be sure to get the retail Tiger or retail Leopard.
    The Tiger installer is a san serif gray and white X with a spotlight on the center of the X on a black background.
    The Leopard installer is a san serif black and gray X on a pink galaxy centered on a black background.
    This is the 1st version of this tip. It was submitted on Dec 23, 2009 by a brody.
    Do you want to provide feedback on this User Contributed Tip or contribute your own? If you have achieved Level 2 status, visit the User Tips Library Contributions forum for more information.

  • Can I run Tiger and Leopard on the same computer

    Hi folks.
    I've been meaning to install Leopard for ages but have never got round to it (I bought the retail box when it first came out). I have upgraded my RAM to 2GB and my hard drive to 320GB with no problems.
    My upgraded hard drive has been partitioned into 2 equal parts of 160GB. These appear on desktop as Mackintosh HD1 and HD2. HD1 is the disk with all my files, music, OS etc and HD2 is empty
    I have 2 bootable clones of my present system - one is on a 160GB external and the other is the original 80GB HD that I replaced.
    My question is this - can I install Leopard on to my 160GB external HD, then clone it on to the empty HD2. If I do this would I be able to run both Tiger and Leopard on the same Macbook?
    Is there any problems with this plan? Would I be able to transfer between the 2 OS and how do I install Leopard on the external drive. Is it just a case of inserting the Leopard DVD and choose the external drive as the target?
    As usual thanks in advance
    Del

    # Original Tiger in the internal HD, New Leopard in the external HD.
    # New Leopard in the internal, Legacy cloned Tiger in the external.
    # Split internal, one partition with Tiger, another with Leopard.
    Leopard is backwardly compatible with older Macs, just make sure yours fulfills the minimum system requirements, both use the same filesystem format, so each can see the other. You can't run both at the same time, unless you purchase the server version of Leopard and run it virtualized. 99.9% of Firewire external HD's are bootable, some USB's are bootable but have to test first. You can choose which system to boot from by pressing the Option key at boot time, before the chime. Just make sure the external HDD is plugged in and turned on if that's where you want to boot from.
    When I migrated my PBG4 from Panther to Tiger, got an external FW HDD, cloned Panther onto it, upgraded using Archive and Install, cleaned up, customized and tested it. When I was satisfied all was ok, cloned the original Panther onto another partition of the external HDD, wiped and tested for failure the internal HDD, then cloned the known good and tested Tiger into it. Only thing that died along the way was my old and ancient Photoshop v2.x, that refused to run on Tiger.

  • Mail no longer working after upgrade Tiger to Leopard

    I know that there are some reports out there on the Internet but I can not find a solution that I trust. i upgraded from Tiger to Leopard and ever since my Mail program has completely disappeared. it is no longer in the dock, it is no longer in the applications folder and I went into the Mac Harddrive and found i. I dragged the icon on the dock and when I now start Mail the bar on top of the screen shows me that it started, but no windows come up. Under File most options are grey. i can see that all my mailboxsettings are still there. I have Entorage 2004 as my default mailprogram, but that gave never problems in the past and I use Mail for my google account. Under View in the menu almost everything is grey.
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    In addition the article cited, if you ran 10.3 or earlier prior to upgrading to Tiger, once-upon-a-time, you might also need to remove two files with MessageSorting in their names.
    Ernie

  • I have recently upgraded my iBookG4 from Tiger to Leopard 10.5.8 and find my Bluetooth USB adaptor no longer connects. The Bluetooth pane says inactive. Does Leopard require  USB 2.0. I've had the adaptor for some time so may be USB 1.0

    I have recently upgraded my iBookG4 from Tiger to Leopard 10.5.8 and find my Bluetooth USB adaptor no longer connects. The Bluetooth pane says inactive. Does Leopard require  USB 2.0. I've had the adaptor for some time so may be USB 1.0

    Bluetooth icon on menu bar shows bluetooth off. When opening bluetooth preferences it shows the devices I've connected previously,( my mobile phone), and other devices I've attempted to connect but not very successfully: my iPhone and MiniMac.  The bluetooth dongle in the USB port shows a continual blue light but does not react and the iBook does not recognise that it is there. There is absolutely no reaction when I try to pair my mobile phone, which I've done successfully before upgrading to Leopard, either by the iBook or the mobile phone.
    I assumed that Tiger was not bluetooth compatible with the iPhone or MacMini running SnowLeopard and hoped by upgrading to Leopard I could achieve some file transfers between the three devices (iBook, iPhone and MacMini)

  • Can't find mails anymore after update from Tiger to Leopard

    I've just updated my IMac from Tiger to Leopard (OSX 10.5.6).
    After opening the Mail program I just see the menu bar (no window for the postbox).
    When I open the postbox via the menu bar, the box is just empty. Are my mails gone? Where can I find or restore them?
    Thanks for help,
    Vanillia

    Let's force an overall reindexing via the removal of the Envelope Index. Note the special instructions when forcing the reindexing of IMAP or Exchange accounts in the following:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/3.0/en/14019.html
    This will force the reindexing of all the POP mailboxes and all On My Mac mailboxes. With regard to any IMAP accounts if you have any, the practical result of this action of removing the account folder, is that with the IMAP account still set up in the Preferences, Mail will connect to the IMAP server and create a new account folder, and while doing so will index the messages in the mailbox folders of the IMAP accounts on the server.
    Keep me posted.
    Ernie

  • FireWire slows from 60MB/s to 16MB/s when switching from Tiger to Leopard

    Hi Folks
    This is a big problem for FCP users so I'm posting this here (as well as on the Leopard discussion board). After upgrading to Leopard I noticed a substantial drop in FireWire disk performance. While in Tiger I could sustain 60MB/s against a FireWire800 RAID0 drive. After doing a clean install of Leopard the same drive wouldn't go past 16MB/s reading and about 30MB/s writing.
    Note that I'm well aware of the usual suspects - Spotlight, Time Machine, some other process hitting the disk. This is NOT what's going on.
    I can boot back and forth between Tiger and Leopard and see the above-mentioned speed change. I even went to the Apple Store and booted my machine off of their vanilla installs of both OSes and verified the problem.
    Turns out the specific version of the MacBook Pro is important here. The latest refresh does NOT repro the problem. However, my version, MacBookPro2,2 the first refresh (which was the first to have a FW800 port) DOES repro the problem.
    I've tried this with various Oxford-based FireWire drives and seen the same behavior. Anyone else have this version of the MacBook Pro willing to try this and post their results? You could use most any benchmark program to test throughput - Xbench is fine and free - but I've been using this one (free as well and one-button easy):
    http://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJAKONA_System_Testv2.app.tar
    Thanks and let's hope Apple fixes this one quickly!

    You might consider getting a firewire 800 card and see if that helps. Maybe they'd let you try one out at the apple store. Never a bad idea to have a second firewire bus anyway.
    Or even better, get a SATA card and some external sata drives (I've got both a firewire800 and sata card for my macbookpro - but I've got the earlier model that only has firewire 400 internally). btw, I'm still on tiger.
    Message was edited by: Michael Grenadier

  • Spotlight problem after Tiger to Leopard Upgrade

    Since I upgraded my Macbook Pro 15" from Tiger to Leopard, Spotlight never worked. Initially I didn't mind too much but now I want to get it work.
    I tried all suggestions I found in this forum (see list below) to no avail.
    It seems Mac OS cannot index the system disk.
    Any Terminal command like mdutil or mdimport have no effect and return no info. As a check, I ran the same utilities on my iMac (same Leopard version, but native) and they do in fact work as expected, as well as Spotlight. Another example: mdfind works on my iMac but return nothing on my MBP.
    If I try the regular way, when I write my search string in the Spotlight window I just get nothing on my MBP.
    I tried the OnyX features for Spotlight:
    - Maintenance/Rebuild/Spotlight Index seems to do something, but in fact it does nothing useful
    - Parameters/Spotlight/Options: Enable Indexing the Startup-Disk makes an attempt to enable it and switches immediately back to disabled. No way to keep the option checked. Also removed the Font cache from OnyX as suggested in some post - null.
    Some attempts I made:
    - used Disk Utility to check the disk (no repair needed)
    - used Disk Utility to repair permissions: there are many that are always repaired... this makes me feel the problem might in fact be in the permission area. But after many repair the result is always null.
    - added the start-up disk to the Privacy area in Spotlight Prefs, and later on removed - null
    - trashed com.apple.spotlight.plist pref user prefs - a new one was created but no effect
    - removed /.Spotlight-V100 from terminal - a new one was created but no effect
    - used mdutil -E and -i on and off - I always get the message "/: Indexing and searching disabled"
    - mdimport -L or -A or -X return nothing (on my iMac they return the list of plugins, schema etc.)
    - rebooted many times also in safe mode - null
    - the problem exists also for the other user on the same MBP
    - tried OnyX as described above.
    No effect!!
    Now my question is: what can I try next ?
    I'm sure there is some parameter somewhere (some .plist ?) that can re-enable Spotlight. But which one and where ?
    Thanks in advance
    Piero

    Take a look at Spotless
    http://www.fixamac.net/software/spot2/index.php
    It deals mainly with Spotlight indexes, but it also contains some diagnostics - its description includes the following:
    Spotless will automatically find and delete the "mds-crash-state" file from selected volumes. The file may be created if the Metadata Server crashed or was unexpectedly closed during the indexing process. The presence of this file can prevent Spotlight from indexing the volume in the future.
    Spotless allows you to see exact size of the index directory on each volume.
    Spotless also includes an on/off switch for Spotlight.
    ------------------

  • Do I need to backup my files when upgrading from tiger to leopard?

    Not sure if I need to backup all my files before upgrading from Tiger to Leopard (to use a Mac Box Set), have bought a Seagate 1TB FreeAgent GoFlex Home hard drive to back up on. Was told I wouldn't need a WiFi router but have now discovered I would need a dual Ethernet port to be connected to the internet and the hard drive which my Mac mini only has access for one, either the internet or the hard drive. So I ask do I really need to back up before upgrading? or can you get dual Ethernet ports?

    Only if your data has any value to you.
    If everything works perfectly, you should lose nothing.
    If anything goes wrong, it is possible to lose data.
    Personally I don't want to trust my data to everything working perfectly so I back it up.
    As to the question of dual ethernet ports, you don't need them actually. If you create a LAN with a router then the multiple ports on your router will allow you to connect to both the internet and disk at once.
    Allam

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