USB Boot and iMac upgrade

SAbsar

SAbsar

Mac Graduate
I have an 800MHz iMac running 10.2.8, but sometimes i wish i could go back to OS9... not just classic, the REAL OS9, but i dont want to go thru all the hassle in backing up my drive and then partitioning to install os9... so i wanted to know if i could install OS9 on a USB drive and have my mac boot from it?

Also, is there *ANY* processor upgrade card available for the flat-screen iMac? I *could* use one of those if they're available!
Help me out!
 
Sure, install away... just make sure that you update OS 9 to 9.2.2 so the iMac won't have any trouble with it. Installing on a USB drive, though, is going to be slow going in terms of installing and running if it's USB 1.1. I would try FireWire if you've got one of those drives instead.

And no, there are no upgrades at all for the flat-screen iMac, short of hard drive and memory.
 
hey thanks!

mm. so can you guide me further on which firewire drive to fetch. i just need teeny weeny space enough to install OS9. (btw, how much space DO i need!!!? :O)
 
Well, I don't know if they sell FireWire hard drives with less than 60GB capacity, so that's probably the minimum you'll be able to get. You can purchase a regular IDE hard drive and an empty FireWire enclosure and make your own FireWire drive, but the cost of that would only be a little less than buying a ready-to-go FireWire drive.

http://www.owcomputing.com has great deals on value-priced FireWire drives. Here is a page from them with all their FireWire stuff:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Static_Pages/index.cfm?_process=firewire

You'll want the FireWire 400 drives -- the FireWire 800 drives are only compatible with the G5s right now, since they're the only machines with FireWire 800 on them (some of the new PowerBooks may have FireWire 800 ports on them, but since you've got an iMac, you've got FireWire 400).

A minimum install of OS 9 takes less than 1GB of space, so basically ANY FireWire hard drive you get would suffice for an OS 9 installation as well as any applications you want to install for OS 9.
 
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