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I am planning to upgrade to Tiger in the next week. I just want to see if there are any pitfalls I need to watch out for. Here is my current system:

G4 Dual 1.25GHz processor
OS 10.2.8 (Dual Boot w/ 9.2)
1 GB RAM
PCI 324 connected to original 2408
DP 4.5.2
MTP AV USB (chained to an MTP II)
2 Internal HDs (one on each buss) and a External Firewire

If I upgrade to 10.4, will my computer still be able to dual boot to 9.2?
Will my 324 card still function properly?? (I know I should upgrade but its not in the budget at the moment).
Do I need to initialize my current drive to upgrade, I know it may be a good idea but is it requrires?

Another thought I had is to purchase another internal drive, install 10.4 on that drive and make my current system drive a backup (possibly deleting the 10.2.

Any thoughts or warnings of problems I may have not thought of are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
David Russell

You need to backup before upgrading. Also you should reformat the drive and start fresh. Buying a new drive is the best approach. Not only do you get a new drive with many rotations left in its life, but it will likely be a bit faster and you can always boot back to the old OS if quirks in the new OS should arise.

I just built a machine for a friend using OS 10.3.9 and a 2408 with the 324 card. That works OK and Tiger doesn't appear to be a huge leap when dealing with PCI cards so you should be OK. I've also found that a clean OS with a minimal build and no extra software runs DP and MIS much better that an OS that gets used for multiple heavy hitting programs. If you can leave the new OS just for music that will help.

You'll still be able to boot into 9.2.2 OK. If you have 9.2.2 on a separate partition you'll have less problems. OS 9 doesn't seem to handle having all of the OS X files on the same drive very well. 9 seems to get more directory damage with X existing on the same drive. Also you can hold down the option key when booting and choose to boot from OS X or 9 if they are on separate partitions.

DISCONNECT THE FIREWIRE DRIVE WHEN INSTALLING OS UPDATES.

Cheers