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QuatermassX · Jan 24, 2004, 04:29 PM

Hi,

Just installed Panther on my dual 533 G4. I chose to totally erase the drive and begin afresh.

Well, after swapping out the three CDs and rebooting, I found that Classic wasn't installed! No Classic, no booting into OS9.

What the devil did I do wrong? How can I fix this? I need to be able to boot into OS9 still ...

Help?

Thanks!

Art Vandelay · Jan 24, 2004, 04:36 PM

You erased the hard drive. Classic is not installed with Mac OS X. You can either restore it from your backup, install it from your Mac's Restore CD/DVD, or install it from an OS 9 install CD.

CharlesS · Jan 24, 2004, 06:11 PM

Art's suggestions are good ones. I would also suggest writing to Apple about this. Tell them that Classic should be part of the default Mac OS X installation so users would have an easier time installing it.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Gul Banana · Jan 24, 2004, 06:26 PM

As an option, of course, that you can turn off in the installer...

Developer · Jan 24, 2004, 09:00 PM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Art's suggestions are good ones. I would also suggest writing to Apple about this. Tell them that Classic should be part of the default Mac OS X installation so users would have an easier time installing it.

There is no reason to install Classic if you're new to Mac since OS X is default. And if on the other hand you have legacy applications, then you don't do an erase install obviously (since that would erase those applications), so there's Classic still installed.

CharlesS · Jan 24, 2004, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
There is no reason to install Classic if you're new to Mac since OS X is default. And if on the other hand you have legacy applications, then you don't do an erase install obviously (since that would erase those applications), so there's Classic still installed.

What if you're new to the Mac and you install Panther, doing the erase install either because you're from a Windows background and you know that's the cleanest way to install the OS or because you are a complete newbie and don't know any better, but the next day you buy some old piece of software that says "Mac Compatible" on the box, and then you don't know why the F it doesn't work, because you're new to the Mac and you don't know 1. what Classic is, 2. that you need it, or 3. how the heck to install it?

Disk 3 of the Panther install CDs has 434 MB free on it. That's more than enough room to put a .pkg to install a basic Classic system folder several times.

Developer · Jan 25, 2004, 08:57 AM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
What if you're new to the Mac and you install Panther, doing the erase install either because you're from a Windows background and you know that's the cleanest way to install the OS or because you are a complete newbie and don't know any better, but the next day you buy some old piece of software that says "Mac Compatible" on the box, and then you don't know why the F it doesn't work, because you're new to the Mac and you don't know 1. what Classic is, 2. that you need it, or 3. how the heck to install it?

An erase Install is practically never needed. Archive & Install is more than enough for a reinstall.

If you purchase a title that doesn't run on Macintosh despite being labeled as such you should be able to return it.

CharlesS · Jan 26, 2004, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
An erase Install is practically never needed. Archive & Install is more than enough for a reinstall.

If you purchase a title that doesn't run on Macintosh despite being labeled as such you should be able to return it.

Uh, I thought I already went over this.

1. Many users come from Windows and are used to reformatting to get a clean install

2. Newbies might not know any better and check the box

Also...

3. Sometimes it just feels good to reformat the disk and start from scratch, especially if you've just bought a machine used.