Reinstalling software questions for G4

[ron_ron]

I have a G4 that came with Jaguar and has been updated to Panther. I had some problems and Apple suggested I do a reinstall with archive. Can I do this by just using Panther or do I have to reinstall Jaguar first and then once again upgrade to Panther. If so, do I upgrade just like I did orignially with Panther or is there a different way you are supposed to do it?

[lZakl]

Ron, I don't know exactly what you are asking about the upgrade, however if your original CD's are Jaguar, and the UPGRADE is Panther, then you will need to use the Jaguar CD's to reinstall. If you tried to do an "Archive and reinstall" it will tell you that Jaguar cannot be installed over newer versions of OSX I believe. So, keep in mind that if you don't have the full install of Panther, you may end up having to wipe everything.

What's so serious that you have to do a re-install anyway (just curious) ;-)

[DerekH]

Ron, I don't know exactly what you are asking about the upgrade, however if your original CD's are Jaguar, and the UPGRADE is Panther, then you will need to use the Jaguar CD's to reinstall.

As far as I know, each major release of MacOs X is standalone.

You should be able to archive and reinstall from 10.3, then upgrade 10.3.1 to 10.3.7 using Software update (or copies of the files on disc if you do as I do, and use Software Update to "download only" so I can keep the incremental zip files somewhere safe, expressly for occasions like this).

Indeed, come to think of it, I've done exactly that, and it was quick and easy to do. I had a flaky 10.3 and I decided a complete archive and install was quicker than faultfinding. It was fine doing the upgrade, and touch wood still is - I only reboot about once a month and it's really stable now.

DerekH