Updating 10.5 Installation media firmware?

Kenz

Right Guys/Gals,

I have a copy of the original 10.5 Leopard installation DVD (10.5.0). I've also just purchased a new Mac Pro, which came with 10.6.0 pre-installed. I have been trying numerous different ways of installing 10.5 onto the Mac Pro, but because the Mac Pro firmware is way newer than that supported on the original 10.5 DVD OS, everytime I goto install and boot off the installation DVD, all I get is the annoying grey screen and nothing happens. So, what I want to do is make an image of the install DVD and somehow upgrade the firmware on the image. Then I can either burn an upgraded copy of the install DVD, or better still, just mount the image to a spare volume and boot/install from that instead.

So, the question here is... is it possible to upgrade the OS firmware of an installation DVD image file (after I've restored it to the spare volume)???

Any suggestions are very much appreciated. I've tried a bunch of other solutions (target disk via firewire, Remote install from other 10.6 machine, etc) but none are getting me anywhere.

Talisman

I don't think it's as easy as hacking a Windows install disc. Is the Leopard disc a retail disc or a grey disc which shipped with a computer?

Just had a thought ...

If you put the serial number of the Mac into AppleSerialNumberInfo.com it will tell you what version of the OS (e.g. 10.5.6) the model shipped with so it will give you a starting point for what disc you require.

Kenz

Thanks Talisman,

You're probably right about it not being that easy, but I think I read something a couple of years ago outlining "how to", maybe that was windoze though.

I have the normal retail installation disk, but I also have a few 10.5 grey disks available to me including 10.5.6; except for 10.5.7. I'm suspecting that was the last of the Leopard Install DVDs to ship with the Mac Pro before they switched over to SL 10.6 installation DVDs. The Mac Pro is only a few weeks old so it came with a usual grey install disk of 10.6.0. I also have the retail 10.6.0 available to me.

I might give the 10.6 remote installation another try from another machine that I have and see if I can get any further with that.

cheers.

Talisman wrote: »

I don't think it's as easy as hacking a Windows install disc. Is the Leopard disc a retail disc or a grey disc which shipped with a computer?

Just had a thought ...

If you put the serial number of the Mac into AppleSerialNumberInfo.com it will tell you what version of the OS (e.g. 10.5.6) the model shipped with so it will give you a starting point for what disc you require.

Greentree_uk

no way to update disc. but if you have a mac that can still boot the 10.5 CD then partition your HDD install 10.5 then install all updates then clone to your mac pro and it should boot. if you had bought from an apple dealer they may have done this for you, if asked ofcourse.

Kenz

Cheers man... I already have a set of 10.5 and 10.6 disk images available, but they're made on an older intel iMac dual core; so I was afreid to give that ago due to the fact that the iMac images mightn't have all the required drivers installed to support everything the Mac Pro Dual Quad core would have. Didn't want to break anything, but hey, I'll give it ago and eee. How hardware specific are OS images these days with the newer Mac OSX. I do remember doing this a few years ago on older Mac OSX versions (10.2 or 10.3) and I think it didn't work too well.

Trying to get Remote Install in 10.6 is a pain, can't get the 10.5 to appear on the Mac Pro at startup while holding down the option key as instructed. Same problem I suppose..

Greentree_uk wrote: »

no way to update disc. but if you have a mac that can still boot the 10.5 CD then partition your HDD install 10.5 then install all updates then clone to your mac pro and it should boot. if you had bought from an apple dealer they may have done this for you, if asked ofcourse.

Greentree_uk

don't worry about drivers. it'll have them, it's not a PC.