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XPostFacto 4.0

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Install OS X (up to 10.4) on unsupported PowerPC Macs. Free

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Ryan Rempel

XPostFacto... While Apple has limited its support for Mac OS X to those machines that originally came with a G3 or G4 processor, it is possible to install Mac OS X on some earlier machines. The unsupported machines that work now are the 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500 and 9600, as well the clones that were based on one of these systems (the Umax S900 and J700, and the Power Computing PowerWave and PowerTower Pro). The original processors in these machines will work (with the exception of the 7500, which requires a processor upgrade). G3 or G4 upgrade cards work as well. Other models that use

What's New

Version 4.0:

Supports Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)!
Runs on Mac OS 9.x or 10.2 through 10.4.
Will install Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.4.
Works with "New World" machines that Apple dropped support for in 10.4 (such as the original iMac, original iBook, and the Lombard Powerbook).
Avoids the mis-application of the 8 GB limit on "Old World" machines by the Mac OS X Installer.

Requirements
PPC, Mac OS X 10.1 or later.

XPostFacto User Discussion (Write a Review)

ver. 4.x:

(3)

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Overall:

(51)

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woofer commented on 27 Sep 2007

I'm just wondering/hoping, if this niffty little programme might be updated soon to let users with under 900MHz G4 Macs to install OS X 10.5?
It seems Apple have limited 10.5 for either Intel users or better than 900MHz G4's
Fingers x-ed.....

[Version 4.0]

Anonymous reviewed on 04 Nov 2005

hi, this utility is great, i was able to run the cd installation of mac os X 10.2 in my Power Macintosh 8600 but i had a problem, everything was fine running the installation until i had to choose a selection disk for the installation, the program said that "you cannot install MacOs X on this disk. An erlier version of Mac Os X is not installed" can anybody help to solve this problem? what can i do????

[Version 4.0]

5 Replies

Anonymous commented on 04 Nov 2005

You can go here for help.

Anonymous commented on 05 Nov 2005

thanks, but i still couldn´t find the answer for my problem :(

Anonymous commented on 05 Nov 2005

Did you try the using the forum there? You can ask questions there, or you could email the developer.

Sitzar1 replied on 17 Nov 2005

If you don't have a G3 or G4 upgrade card installed on your 8600, then OS 10.2 isn't going to install. The makers of XPostFacto posted that on their site. If you do have one installed, I have no idea why 10.2 (or 10.3 or 10.4 for that matter) won't install.

mactinker replied on 19 Jun 2007

Is it possible that the cds you are using to install from are updates? You didn't mention what you're running on the computer now - is it a version of X or is it older? When I've run into problems such as you describe, it's usually been an update installation, not a clean install. This would put the situation out of the realm of XPostFacto and back with your OSX source.

Anonymous reviewed on 09 Aug 2005

Question: Can model specific OS X 10.4 be used for upgrades? (Those for eMac are cheaper.)

[Version 4.0b5]

3 Replies

Anonymous commented on 05 Sep 2005

No.

TiberiusOsX commented on 06 Jan 2006

On the contrary, while modification is required, the use of model specific discs is completely feasible.

Faust replied on 17 Apr 2006

TiberiusOsX wrote:

"On the contrary, while modification is required,
the use of model specific discs is completely feasible."

What is this modification?
Where is it described?

Anonymous reviewed on 12 Jul 2005

Cool! Give this genius the 25$!!! Now i have 2 beige G3s running with Tiger, this means a lot of money saved! Thanx!!

[Version 4.0b5]

1 Reply

Nathaniel Yeong Leng Heng commented on 06 Sep 2005

I've been trying many times to install panther on my beige G3 without success. I just am not able to boot up using the installer disk even after enabling Xpostfacto and many of the options.

Please help.

Anonymous reviewed on 12 Jul 2005

Yes Yes Yes!!!! Lombard g3 is a go!! Installed without a hitch right over Panther...WAY COOL. Will for sure pay for this one :-)

[Version 4.0b5]

Anonymous reviewed on 18 Jun 2005

Question: Is it possible to do the Tiger install from an external firewire cased drive (Like a DVR-109), or one connected internally on one of those ATA cards that looks like SCSI to the system? Or should I get the CD- version of Tiger?

I've had great results with XPF on 10.3.9 and previous.

Like the author of iCab 3, who supports OS 8.5+ and OS X with a modern browser, this developer certainly deserves our thanks and support.

[Version 4.0b2]

2 Replies

Anonymous commented on 23 Jun 2005

I have installed Tiger using my external firewire hard disk. The way I did it is closer to the way described in this article at MacOSXHints.
Here it uses an iPod and have it completely erased to become an installer but erasering is not necessary at all.
In my case I collected al my folders at one new folder named "My Stuff" and then restored the Tiger DVD image to the external hd without erasering it.
My only problem was at booting up from this disk: only worked modifying the Startup Disk in System Preferences.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050524104814419

Anonymous commented on 11 Jul 2005

yes, you don't have to jump through the hoops that the other guy did, just put it in and tell it to install, it even picks a helper drive for you.

Anonymous reviewed on 19 Apr 2005

I am sold on XPostfacto (although I still need to pay the author for this EXCELLENT piece of software). Although I have not tried out version 3.1 yet, version 3.0.x.x works beautifully on my mildly-upgraded Powermac 7500, in addition to two Beige G3s with the skanky built-in 2MB video. Thanks to Ryan Rempel et al, those of us with legacy "unsupported" Powermacs don't need to suck on the juicy Apple shaft financially and go buy a newer machine just to be up-to-date with the OS versions. This program is a must-have for all who own legacy systems.

[Version 3.1]

Anonymous reviewed on 19 Apr 2005

One of the most valuable pieces of software of all time…

Others:
Conflict Catcher
DiskWarrior
etc

[Version 3.1]

Anonymous reviewed on 19 Apr 2005

would be nice to see support for tiger for those of us without built-in firewire ports.

[Version 3.1]

2 Replies

Anonymous commented on 19 Apr 2005

He can't do it yet because Apple hasn't released the source code for the corresponding version of Darwin yet. When that happens, then the job of making XPF work with Tiger can begin.

Anonymous commented on 20 Apr 2005

that would be sweet. can't wait

Anonymous reviewed on 18 Apr 2005

Has anyone tried to update to OSX 10.3.9? I have a beloved 9600 with Sonnet G4/800, and am on hairy edge of upgradability.
Currently, I can ONLY boot using XpostFacto (3.0), not the Startup disk in OS9.X NOR OSX 10.3.8 . . . any suggestions there?

[Version 3.1a4]

4 Replies

Anonymous commented on 19 Apr 2005

Hi,

I have a similar setup, a 9600 upgraded with a Sonnet Crescendo G4 800 MHz cpu board, and I'm running 10.3.9 just perfect (re-applying Security Update 2005-002 ironed out the Java quirks).
Of cours, I took all the known "pre"cautions before and after the update, and used the Combo updater instead of the Delta (luckily my Internet connection is a fast one).
Try and run the "Install everything" feature in XPF (Install menu, 4th item from above), and if you haven't tried the OSX Combo updater, run it on top of your actual installation, maybe this will help!
Good luck!

Anonymous commented on 19 Apr 2005

10.3.9 delta update worked just fine here. And you're not supposed to be able to use the Startup Disk control panels, that's why there's an XPF application in the first place, instead of just a bunch of kernel extensions.

Anonymous commented on 19 Apr 2005

You shouldn't use Start up disk in OSX or OS9 to tell the system what to boot up on, because then you will have OSX or OS9 writing to your PRAM and not XPostFacto, OSX or OS9 may change your PRAM settings and prevent you from booting OSX until you use XPostFacto again because the system will not be tricked anymore into letting your old computer boot. I know you cannot use start up disk in OS9 for this reason but i am not 100% sure about OSX as I only have one OSX drive to boot off of anyway so I will always use XPostfact to determine my boot drive.

The XPostFacto support forums are now free, so feel free to make a name over there to get better support. forum.macsales.com

Anonymous commented on 21 Apr 2005

Okey doke. Thanks, y'all. I'll do the online upgrade over 10.3.8 and give up on Startup Disk . . .
-D

mactinker had trouble on 22 Jun 2007

Hi! XPF was recommended to me by a list mod to help in installing 10.3 on a beige G3 AIO. I have asked Apple and they tell me that 10.2 will install and run on this Mac just fine. I went to the list in question looking for 10.2. But the list mod was very encouraging about the superiority of 10.3 over 10.2, so I tried to dl XPF4.

I got a page of very strange code, and no actual dl at all. Thought you'd want to know about that.

Three questions:

1. Does anyone know what I might have done wrong in the dl process? I clicked the "Download now" button, that's all, and all that appeared to be necessary. Or maybe it can't dl to OS9?

2. If I can get hold of a set of 10.2 CDs, do I still need XPF? (Apple says no, just fyi, but if *users* have different actual experience, that's helpful to know.)

3. (Slightly OT) If I could just go altogether with X I wouldn't ask this, but: Does anyone have an opinion whether 10.3 is really so much better than 10.2 that I need to add to the complication of making the switch? It's going to be tight in the first place, as I need to partition the HD so I can have one side w/ OSX and the other w/ OS9, because I actually do use the built-in floppy and zip drives, both unsupported under all versions of X. Can't go get a USB floppy drive, because the AIO does not have USB ports, which are required by 10.3.

Thanks for your time.

[Version 4.0]

Paynito had trouble on 09 Oct 2005

Just installed 10.4 on Lombard 400MHz/320 MB, cannot shutdown cleanly, it hangs on "double kernel panic, I'm hanging here"
any ideas?
--
I was a very happy user of Xpostfacto on my 9500/g4450 with 10.3

[Version 4.0]

2 Replies

PowerbookG3 commented on 21 Dec 2006

I own a Powerbook G3 333Mhz lombard too with the same memory.

When was the last time to cleaned the hard drive?

Are you the 1st owner? If not, ask the previous owner if there were any problems before.

paynito commented on 27 Nov 2007

Well, killed the 9500 trying to go from 10.3 to 10.4. Remember 10.4 needs a newer video card than came stock on the 9500. Now I can get it to boot into os9 with the original processor, but can't get it to recognize the g4 upgrade. I have a floppy disc called "Reset DMUD see upgrade" but I don't remember exactly what order to jump through the hoops. Oh, well. I really like this 9500, great machine after all these years.

Saturnworld2002 had trouble on 24 Jan 2005

Has anybody encountered this problem?

I have a Beige G3 333, running Mac OS 10.3.7 with a PCI Firewire Card installed, when I connect a Firewire device such as a HD it freezes. This has corrupted my installation twice now!

[Version 3.0]

3 Replies

Anonymous commented on 30 Jan 2005

I don't know about what's causing your freezes, but as for the boot drive getting corrupted when you can't do a normal shutdown/restart, try turning on journaling. The option to journal shows up in the File Menu of Disk Utility with your drive selected.
It can be done safely with data on the drive, no reformat needed.

I think 10.3.x formats drives with journalling on by default, but it probably isn't if you set the drive up with an earlier version of OS X.

Anonymous commented on 09 Feb 2005

hi i have the same problem with both a g3 desktop and a 400htz g3 tower.
if i conect by firewire it becomes very diifcult to access the original drives again
did you obtain any solutions in the end ?
cheers kevin

Jakusa commented on 21 Feb 2005

had the same prob with my G3 300 and FW911 devices. Dont use updates 10,3,7 or 10,3,8. Use instead 10,3.
I´ve to mention that my Combo Drive(FW/USB) hadn´t any probs with any update, only my IceCube FW911 didn´t work propper.

Eric30 had trouble on 14 Apr 2004

It looks like a PM9600 is giving me trouble putting Panther on it. I removed everything but the scsi- HD build in, used ext. cd rom, internal cd- rom, nothing seems to work. I removed extra ram, ... Strange. 10.2.8 did work for this machine. I'm working on it for days now.

[Version 3.0a17]

1 Reply

Anonymous commented on 06 May 2004

re: Troubleshooting by Eric

Could it be the installer/bad blocks
on the CD.

I found that my CD for Panthor has
some bad blocks when I did a full install to my G4. ( Still doing a mini battle with AppleCare guys for replacement disks. They claim their products are perfect: yeh? so why
does the CD do a verification of it self
before it proceeds to install ? They did
not like to hear that and almost
hung up on me. )

I ended up making an initial very basic "selected" install and then subsequent " update " installs.

This weekend I will be updating my 9600 which has a sonnet G4 card with Panther.

Listen for the small words of .....

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