HELP w/ macosX clean install

chicodoggy

machead since 91
Hello - im a osX newbie and am having problems getting my osX to run after deleting several apps and files.

what is installed when you install osX besides the system folder?

how do you do a clean install and/or remove the old osX currently installed?

I get the following error when trying to boot into osX: broken file..... panic... unable to find driver for this .....

something along those lines

what should I do?

I just updated mac os 9.2.2 and my G4 sawtooth's firmware to 4.2.8 f1 prior to this problem.

any help would greatly be appreciated :)
 
Hmmm....
It really depends on how much you want to keep!

If you don't care, or have everything you want backed up, the simplest thing to do is to just reformat/partition the drive and start over. You'll need a cd with os9 that you can startup off of though. If you just bought Jaguar, it sadly doesn't come with one. But you can still reformat from the Jaguar installer. Just put the jag cd in and start it up.

Somewhere in there, it will ask you if you want to format the target disk, choose yes - making sure NOT to choose UFS. You want hfs+ or hfs, whatever one is NOT UFS. I don't recall being able to partition from the installer.

If you want/have to repartition, you'll need an os9 startup disk. If you have one (should've gotten one when you purchased the computer) then you are in luck! Put that puppy in and restart, holding the option key (I think). When it starts up in 9, find "drive Setup" in the utilities folder on the cd. Format/partition at will. Then install 9 on one partition and then jaguar on the other.

As far as what files are installed, well... I couldn't tell you all of them, but it's a safe bet to stear clear from deleting anything that isn't in your user directory! Let the os handle the System folder for you. It does a decent job.

hope that helps!
J5
 
Originally posted by J5
If you just bought Jaguar, it sadly doesn't come with one. But you can still reformat from the Jaguar installer. Just put the jag cd in and start it up.
The Jag boot CD includes a disk utility that is accessible from the installer's menu (select Disk Tools, I believe), which allows you to re-partition and re-format. That's what I used when I did a clean install (and wanted to get rid of the OS9 partition to make one big OS X partition).
 
hello again,

thank you all for your input. fortunately i do have all original cds for os9 9.1 and osx, osx.1

Do you think there is any way one can save the osX system or get it to boot up without reformating the hd?

Is there a way to keep os9.2.2 installed and remove and reinstall osX?

If not, i guess i will just have to reformat and install os9 and osX all over again. :( if i do this, any suggestions on formating my 10 gig hd into 2 partitions? cant i just delete the osX system folder and reinstall osX from cd.

i am also thinking of adding a 30 gig maxtor 7200rpm 100 ultra ata hd to my sawtooth? is this a good idea or not?
 
what is developer on my hd? is it part of osX or os9??

do i need it for system stability or anything??
 
Developer is the developer tools.

You shouldn't need it unless you plan on creating your own apps for os x, java, etc.

I think you can safely delete it, but I've never tried!

J5
 
There is a way to do a complete clean install.

Get File Buddy from www.skytag.com
You need to use this in OS 9 so you need to boot in OS 9 from the Start Disk panel.
Launch it. then choose Find Invisible Files from the Cleaning menu. Now select the following items and click on the trash icon in the File Buddy window:
.DS_store
.hidden
.Trashies
.vol
bin
cores
dev
etc
mach_kernel
Network
private
sbin
usr
vmr

Now with these files removed, quite file buddy and then trash the following items on the top or root level of your hard drive
Library
mach
mach.sym
System
Users (this will erase your user name and password)
Applications (this will erase all of your programs. If you don't have the installers I suggest you save them to zip or burn them on a CD.

Empty the trash. This will take a while. You might want to empty the trash every so often while you are doing this.

Now restart with the Mac OS X cd and install.
 
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