Macintosh users have been excited about the release of the newest Leopard OS X upgrades. The system requirements are a Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor, a minimum ram of 512mb, and at least 9 GB of disk space. With these specs, it means that older generation Macs like an iBook or iMac g4 should be capable of running the OS.
Because a number of people using older Macs have been experiencing installation problems, some users have developed a way to install the system using a startup disk method. In the event of a malfunction, the startup disk feature in a Mac computer disk utility application allows people to create a virtual disk to restore their computers to specific settings. This involves creating a startup disk using the Leopard installer that your Mac will restore when installing the new OS.
The following steps will help you create a restore disk for your Mac:
1) Clean up your system folder and hard drive. Remove unwanted files, empty folders, and extensions that you no longer use. Make sure you back up your files before cleaning your system.
2) Extract the image file from your installation disc and convert it to a .dmg file (an installation image file for Macs).
3) Transfer that file to an external drive like a USB drive or an IPod. When using an IPod, make sure it is set in disk mode and that you use a drive that has at least has 8 GB worth of available memory. It is important to note that this will not work on an IPhone or a media player without the disk mode option.
4) Attach your iPod or USB drive to your Mac and wait for it to appear.
5) Launch the Disk Utility application and select your external drive.
6) There should be a restore tab. Click on it and select the image file you extracted on the "source" field.
7) Drag your external disk to the "destination" field. You should make a partition. Without a partition, the process will erase everything on your drive. If you want to partition your external drive, this can be done through the Disk utility application. Remember to make sure that your external drive is mounted.
8) Once the application is launched, simply select your external drive and select the partition. You will be given a list of partition options. Select restore. The restore process may take a few minutes.
9) When the restore process is complete, open up your system preferences.
10) Launch the start-up disk application then select the restore drive with the leopard .dmg.
11) Click restart and the Leopard will begin to install.
If you follow these easy steps, you should be able to complete your installation without any problems. The new OS has a system requirement, so if your ram is not that fast and your processor is lower than 900 MHz, do not expect the OS to run any faster.
