Installing Jaguar without CD drive - possible?

doemel

doemel

Mac addict since 1993
The CD drive in my old workhorse (Wallstreet PowerBook) is dying, I can't read CDs anymore. Now, I need to install 10.2, I have image files of the install CDs (and a legitimate copy of it, too, in case you're think of the p-word now).
I don't have any external CD drives (neither SCSI nor FireWire), I have a FireWire PC Card and a LaCie drive though and my HD is partitioned. Is it somehow possible to copy the CDs content to an empty partition or the FW drive and boot/install from that? If yes, how do I accomplish this?

Thanks for all suggestions!
 
Try to clean the cd drive. Cotton swabs (i.e. the cotton sticks used in ear hygiene) with a drop of alcohol (cleaning or medical alcohol, not vodka etc, those are unclean) on them, and clean carefully the laser head (the small thing that you can individuate on the cd drive once it's open).

That could do for making the drive work again.
 
It's dead because I killed it. I opened it up fiddled around a bit and now I think one of the data cables has a major problem (I have tried to reseat the cable several times). The drive is still somehow recognized in Apple System Profiler (not correctly, though). OS 9 and X both sort of lock up while the drive is in the bay. When I insert a CD the drive starts spinning but of course the CD never shows up anywhere. I'll try to fit a CD-RW drive (Matshita UJDA 310L) in there later. I don't have the necessary tools with me now, so this has to wait. The install can't really wait, that's why I'm trying to get Jaguar installed. And plus it's a challenge for you guys to reveal/dig up/think of some slick tricks :D
 
I had the same problem with my Pismo. It was my father's computer before and he crushed the drive in his bag while travelling. So, now the cd spins against the case and doesnt read very well.

I hooked up my external firewire cdrw burner to the powerbook and installed it from there. That would be my suggestion. Find someone with an external cd drive. If you are close to an Apple Store you might try taking it there and see if they have an external drive they could hook it up to for you so you can install Jag.
 
I had the same problem with my Pismo. It was my father's computer before and he crushed the drive in his bag while travelling. So, now the cd spins against the case and doesnt read very well.

I hooked up my external firewire cdrw burner to the powerbook and installed it from there. That would be my suggestion. Find someone with an external cd drive. If you are close to an Apple Store you might try taking it there and see if they have an external drive they could hook it up to for you so you can install Jag.


I just figured out that booting off a FireWire CD drive (not sure about HD drives though) on a Wallstreet is a no-go. I wonder if it's because the WS doesn't have built in FW and I have to use a PCMCIA card for that. I guess I'll have to find myself another drive then. Fortunately they're affordable on eBay.
Even more fortunately my new G4 PowerBook is coming soon :D , my old workhorse has served my long enough but working on it every day using OS X is just so painfully slow that it robs me of all my "idle time" I'd have on a faster system ;)
 
if you have another mac available you might be able to start the pbook in firewire mode and install from the other mac, although i have no clue if that would work... just a thought though
 
if you have another mac available you might be able to start the pbook in firewire mode and install from the other mac, although i have no clue if that would work... just a thought though


Isn't it SCSI mode you're referring to? That might work, I'll have to give it a try. But then again, How do I get the right hardware specific files installed or is OS X not so specific anymore as the classic MacOS used to be?
 
I believe Jason was referring to the Firewire Target Disk Mode. I believe you need a newer Mac, a firewire cable (6 pin to 6 pin) and, of course, Firewire ports.

Both Macs need to be running OS X, or OS 9 with FireWire software version 2.3.3 or later (according to Apple Developer Connection).

Is it possible to install an operating system this way? Donno.

Doug
 
Since I got my new G4 PowerBook last night I finally resolved this problem by installing the HDD of my Wallstreet into the G4 and reinstalling OS 9 that way. Thanks for all the tips.
 
There is a utility called XPostFacto that installs OS X onto supposedly unsupported Macs (i.e. pre-G3) by copying the contents of the CD to a local disk partition, altering them with components from the open Darwin distribution, and then booting from that partition. This lets you install onto another partition.

You might want to look into that method...
 
Thanks, scruffy, that looks exactly what I would need to do. As mentioned in my previous post I got a new Ti PowerBook in the meanwhile so I don't need X on my Wallstreet anymore. In fact, I succeeded in reinstalling OS 9. I'm giving my Wallstreet to my ex-girlfriend in Toronto since I don't intend to bring it back to Switzerland. Because X was always slow on that machine and my ex won't really need the added value of X I won't even bother about reinstalling it.

Thanks for your tip though, I might need it one day since I'm maintaining a lot of my friend's Macs (that's the curse when you have the image of a Mac geek that knows all about troubleshooting MacOS and Apple Hardware :D )
 
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