How to update a messed-up PowerPC machine from an Intel machine?

[deemery]

I visited my mother this weekend and brought along my new Intel MacBook Pro and the PowerPC X.4.10 combo updater. I transferred the combo to her machine, and the updater -failed-, resulting in an eMac that wouldn’t boot.

I had with me my Tiger update DVD, but my mom’s eMac doesn’t have a DVD drive. (ugh!). So one thing I tried was to mount the eMac on the MacBook Pro in Target mode (usually a lifesaver in these situations). But when I tried to install Tiger from its DVD onto my Mom’s eMac hard drive, I was told “You can’t install MacOS on this drive.”.

So is there a good trick for bringing up a dead PowerPC machine from an Intel laptop? What we ended up doing was installing an old version of MacOS on the eMac (X.2 was what it came with). Then I stuck my X.4 DVD into the MacBook Pro, and put it into Target mode. Thankfully, the DVD mounted on the eMac, and things proceeded normally from there.

My mother was not amused I had messed up her machine.

dave

[Author]

Posts