osx 10.3.9 boot from USB to upgrade HELP!

edscdk · 12 Apr 2012 at 22:14

I have a OSX 10.5(somethng) DVD I want to transfer its contents to a USB drive and install my mac from the USB drive

its a PPC 1ghz snowball imac thingie.. working happy

I have a nice shiny leopard DVD but the drive cannot read it properly.... the drive has not worked properly for some time.

I have windows machines and can create an iso which the mac can read... but i don't know how to get the install files to a USB hdd / flash drive to boot and install

any help much appreciated...

edscdk · 12 Apr 2012 at 22:41

d_brennen said:
oops it was Lion. The gist might be the same... The folder was InstallMacOSX.pkg and the Lion image was InstallESD.dmg

the windows 7 machine only sees a 400mb cdfs bootcamp partition on the dvd any tricks I can use?

the mac will mount the ISO but obviously it thinks it a real DVD since it say reboot now to upgrade and the reboot does nothing...

edscdk · 12 Apr 2012 at 23:00

d_brennen said:
I'd use the Mac to make an image file of the disk (.dmg) and copy it to a USB drive, copy that onto the Windows machine and use 7Zip to extract the .dmg into a folder. TransMac should be able to take up the slack from there

last question before i give up...

your plan sounds great...

but the mac only sees install mac s x (small app)
and two folders called instruciotns and optional installs...

any suggestions on how to see the rest of the stuff?

also no spare mac

edscdk · 15 Apr 2012 at 13:16

in the end I went dug out a USB DVD drive, booted the G4 iMac with the button to show the boot options (picture on button look a bit like a backwards capital J gone a bit wrong)

initially the boot options only showed the internal hard drive, however after about 60seconds the USB DVD drive appeared in the list and I was able to boot from it!!!