Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

bbales · Jan 9, 2004, 09:05 AM

Hi all: Well, I'm finally taking the plunge this weekend and getting around to installing Panther. Am going to do my 12-in PB first, as it's not my main machine. That one doesn't even have OS9, so I don't have to worry about it.

On my 3-year-old desktop, though, I currently have 2 partitions -- 5 for OS9 and 15 for X. That worked well, 2 years ago, when I first did this, b/c so many things still needed 9. But now, first of all, I need more space on the X partition. Second of all, I think I have just one program that still needs Classic -- it's an old Calendar Creator program that hasn't been updated in years. I use it once a year.

The Sims needed 9 to be installed, but we have the most recent expansion pack and running that doesn't trip off Classic -- it runs in X now -- so I'm thinking I'm safe with that. (Unless, of course, I end up for some reason having to install the whole thing from the beginning, in which case I could be in trouble if I don't have a real OS9.)

SO -- as I'm probably going to wipe the drive and repartiition it, I'm wondering if I should even bother re-installing 9 at all, or just leave it one big happy drive? No longer need to boot to 9 for scanning -- that was a biggie. I don't think I boot into 9 for anything.

Thoughts? Will I be sorry I don't have an OS9? Should I make that partiion maybe 2 gigs max?

Thanks.

Ron Goodman · Jan 9, 2004, 09:13 AM

You'll probably get a number of suggestions to keep it, as it doesn't use much space. We have three Macs at home an haven't had OS 9 on any of them for a couple of years. Unless there's a specific app you run that needs it, I don't see any point in keeping it around.

andreas_g4 · Jan 9, 2004, 11:58 AM

1. Wipe your drive.
2. Then install Mac OS 9.2.2.
3. Start Disc Copy and create a diskimage from your Systemfolder.
4. Burn that image onto a CD.
5. Format the drive again and install only OS X.

Boom. Cough. You can easily just copy the Systemfolder to your OS X installation, it will be recognized just fine.

bbales · Jan 9, 2004, 03:48 PM

I don't suppose I can wipe the drive, leave reformat it to remove the petitions and then simply copy over the 9.2 stuff onto the drive without re-installing? Now that I think about it, I think that's how I did it the first time around. (It was two years ago, so I'm not clear on all the details.)

That sounds easier to me...

ZackS · Jan 9, 2004, 03:58 PM

I would leave a minimal OS 9 install around somewhere. If you don't really plan on booting it often, it doesn't even have to be on the root level of your HD. And if you're going through the trouble of wiping the whole thing, I'd just reinstall 9 to get a clean copy, then forget about it. You could copy the old one by backing it up but frankly... why? More trouble than it's worth.

bbales · Jan 9, 2004, 04:13 PM

Would you repartitiion? I'm thinking I don't really need to this time around. On the other hand... might save me some trouble down the road.

Just installed Panther on my PB and except for some weirdness (Launchbar quit and I have to update QuickKeys because trying to use it sent it into spasms) it seems to work great.

ZackS · Jan 9, 2004, 04:26 PM

I highly recommend reformatting everything and making 1 partition. It will surely save you trouble down the road.

CharlesS · Jan 10, 2004, 12:09 AM

My Classic System Folder is only about 125 MB. My entire Classic folder, including the apps and everything, is barely over 200 MB.

I used to have a partition about 300 MB or so for Classic just in case I wanted to boot into 9 for a game of Marathon (the original, whose data files don't run in Aleph One). If you leave off all the extra stuff like the Applications (Mac OS 9) folder and junk, you can get away with a really small partition for Classic - it doesn't have to be anywhere near 5 GB.

bbales · Jan 10, 2004, 08:51 AM

Yes, that was why I kept thinking I needed to do the whole wipe the drive and start over routine. The more I thought about it the more I realized I was had some precious hard drive real estate being seriously underutilized.

So, tomorrow it's on to erasing, reformatting and moving to the world of Panther.

ON an aside, I've installed it on the PB and it's working great. I finally set up accounts for everyone and my kids love the fast-user switching. Ichat has been a big hit, too -- never bothered with it before.

Thanks for the help everyone. That's why I love these forums...