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Ruahrc · Sep 17, 2004, 12:39 PM

Just got a new Mac and it came with Panther plus the core of OS 9 for classic. Now since this is my first Mac I don't own any mac software yet (well save for Office 2004), and presumably any software I get will be OS X native? So I was wondering if there was a way to remove the OS 9 components to clean things up a bit and free up some disk space.

Is this possible and/or advisable, or should I keep it around just in case, because Classic is still useful? I guess I am a little paranoid about disk space and HD tidyness but I thought I'd ask anyways.

Ruahrc

drive-thru · Sep 17, 2004, 12:55 PM

If the mac is brand new then I would recommend booting from the OS X CD, using Disk Utility (can be found in the Apple menu I think) to format your hard drive (don't select the Install OS 9 Drivers option) and just install Panther.

Backup anything you have already put on your mac.

I haven't used Classic for about 2 years and you won't need it unless there is a specific software title you need which runs on OS 9 only.

TETENAL · Sep 17, 2004, 01:06 PM

You can simply trash the classic system folder.

suthercd · Sep 17, 2004, 03:23 PM

I made a blessed disk image of a System Folder that can be used to launch Classic when needed (been at least a year for me, probably 18 months). The image I use, which is stripped down, is a bit over 60MB.

Macosxhints has the method to do this in its archives.

Craig

juanvaldes · Sep 17, 2004, 04:39 PM

I'd keep it around "just in case", not sure about you but I still have old games I bust out from time to time and need classic for that. It's only about 300 megs (see above for even smaller) anyway so for me it's like keeping IE around. 20 megs is worth the chance I might need it at some unknown point in the future.

Old Toad · Sep 17, 2004, 04:50 PM

There have been threads where some people accidently moved many, many files to the desktop which prevented the Finder from operating properly and they couldn't boot up into OS X. They solved the problem by booting into OS 9, cleaning up the desktop and then reboot into OS X.

So there are instances where having OS 9 to boot into is a good thing. You might try creating a bootable OS 9 CD. Although slow, it would permit you to do OS 9 stuff to your HD. But don't remove the OS 9 drivers if you ever reformat or you're dead.

Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.

shortcipher · Sep 18, 2004, 12:10 PM

Originally posted by Old Toad:
There have been threads where some people accidently moved many, many files to the desktop which prevented the Finder from operating properly and they couldn't boot up into OS X. They solved the problem by booting into OS 9, cleaning up the desktop and then reboot into OS X.

So there are instances where having OS 9 to boot into is a good thing. You might try creating a bootable OS 9 CD. Although slow, it would permit you to do OS 9 stuff to your HD. But don't remove the OS 9 drivers if you ever reformat or you're dead.

Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.

but if you have a new Mac, then it cant boot into OS9 anyway...

Old Toad · Sep 18, 2004, 01:10 PM

Just got a new Mac and it came with Panther plus the core of OS 9 for classic.

If it has OS 9 Classic I'm assuming it can boot into OS 9.

Spheric Harlot · Sep 18, 2004, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by Old Toad:
If it has OS 9 Classic I'm assuming it can boot into OS 9.

I'd say you're wrong, since ALL new Macs come with Classic, AFAIK.

bradoesch · Sep 18, 2004, 01:37 PM

Originally posted by Old Toad:
If it has OS 9 Classic I'm assuming it can boot into OS 9.

Unless Apple is still shipping that old G4 tower, no new Macs can boot OS 9.

Old Toad · Sep 18, 2004, 01:46 PM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
Unless Apple is still shipping that old G4 tower, no new Macs can boot OS 9.

Agreed, but he might have gotten it thru an online source that still has some of the older ones. I guess we need to find out exactly which model he has. That would end all this assuming and guessing.

Ruahrc · Sep 18, 2004, 04:25 PM

Nope it's a brand new PB straight from Apple, so I guess it won't boot into OS9.

I tried that hint about making a volume, pretty slick! (I even got that unmount-on-exit script to work!) Except I don't know beans about OS 9 so my volume is still the full size of the System folder, 180MB. How or what did you erase to slim it down to 60?

It makes my "Disk" look cleaner now because it only has OS X folders in it now

Ruahrc

fisherKing · Sep 18, 2004, 05:22 PM

i trashed 9 the minute i got my new pb...
deleted the "system folder" and the apps (os9) folder...
even the "classic" pref pane.

also, check out delocalizer ; gets rid of (selective) foreign language files in osx, cleared almost a gig from my system.

Ron Goodman · Sep 18, 2004, 05:33 PM

Unless you're going to run vintage OS 9 software, there's no reason to keep it around.