Upgrade iMac ppc os 10.4.11 to 10.5

Question

Hi There
I'd like know if I could upgrade the operating system on my iMac ppc from 10.4.11 to 10.5. I read a few of the forum posts and it seem that it's possible with a few tweaks. One suggestion I found is a post from tbdmoss posted on the 2nd of November, which is as follows:
It's pretty easy to get Leopard installed on any G4 machine with AGP graphics, which includes your eMac. You can make a small modification to the Leopard DVD to remove the (artificial) check for 867+ MHz if you want a DVD that will always install with no hassle, but if you just want to do one installation it's probably easier to:
(1) Hold the Command, Option, O and F keys together when starting the machine and only
release them once the Open Firmware command line has appeared.
(2) Insert the Leopard DVD into the Mac’s DVD drive.
(3) Run the following script exactly as below (including capitals), press Enter after each line
and check that Open Firmware displays “ok”
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,
:tbxi
Will this work for the iMac I own?
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Dave

Answer 1

Hey Ralph,
I thought I'd let you know how I'm going with upgrading my iMac. It certainly has been a learning curve and I've made some very fundamental goofs. It's a wonder the iMac hasn't exploded with the way I've been going about trying to upgrade it. However I think I've finally done it in, and I just tried to upgrade the operating system.
If I step you through what I have done when upgrading the operating system, perhaps you could offer me some suggestions to alleviate the predicament I seem to be in at the moment. This post is going to be difficult for me, because I'm not a tech-head, and the situation I'm about to describe has a chronology of haphazard procedures I performed in order to try and upgrade the operating system.
Pause for a cigarette...
Now, where to start.
I downloaded a 10.5 Leopard OS torrent from the internet to burn onto a DVD+R DL CD. I followed all of the procedures described in the forum to burn it onto the CD. However, when I tried to burn the software onto the DVD+R DL CD, the iMac did not recognise the CD and subsequently there I met the first of my consternation's. Having pondered the dilemma I thought of an alternative. I happen to own a MacBook, and while reading the forum for instructions on burning the CD, I happened upon a post which described using an external hard drive to perform the operating system upgrade.
All very well... except,
I happened to overlook a strategic step in the upgrade procedure. I remember from the forum something about 'partitioning the hard drive' on the destination volume, or something like that. <:-\
Anyway, I connected a firewire between the iMac and the MacBook and setup a network between the two devices. I then opened the image of the Leopard operating system on the MacBook and proceeded to opened the disc utility. I clicked on the restore menu radio button in the disk utility and dragged and dropped the image of the Leopard OS, as per instructions, into the source field. I then dragged and dropped the image of the iMac HD into the destination field and pressed restore. It all went along smashingly.
After the download to the iMac was complete, I followed subsequent steps. I was advised to restart the MacBook, where I was assured the Leopard OS would begin the upgrade procedure. It did, although the other way. Somehow I ended up with the Leopard OS on my MacBook when I was intending to upgrade the iMac. Serendipity, I only had 10.4.11 on the MacBook, and now I have Leopard! Great huh?
My delight was short lived.
Remember the partitioning of the destination hard drive I overlooked earlier? It seems I've given my iMac an identity crisis. I have caused what is affectionately known as 'the spinning wheel of death'. Apparently the iMac can no longer distinguish between the Leopard OS and Tiger. The i Mac proceeds no further than the grey screen with the Apple icon and the spinning wheel. I can still access the iMac and all of the data on it through a firewire network, but I'm uncertain of how to restore either of the operating systems.
Meanwhile, the Leopard OS on the MacBook has very nice features.
Is my iMac ruined?
Please help!
Dave