PowerBook 180 clean install?

[atariangamer]

So, I have a PB180 that was running 7.5.3 for awhile, but that didn't work out so well because of how slow it was. I had been told to try putting System 7 Pro on it, so just recently in a massive clean, I got everything back together for another try. I got the System 7 Pro disk images from when I was first working on it. I have them all written to floppies, but the install disk isn't bootable. I made the disk tools bootable by putting the 131 enabler in the system folder, but wasn't sure where to go from there. I tried a few things, but the most successful one ended in an installation error right near the end.

I've heard a few things now, one being that you need to install System 7.1 before installing the 7.1.1 pro on it, and another that the pro disks can install fresh. BUT, the only copy of the 180 disks that I could find are in a format I can't write. My only floppy drive computer is an old Sony Vaio desktop. The other is this Powerbook 180, but being as it's only got a floppy drive, its not quite useful either. I have a zip drive for scsi, but I haven't loaded a driver or even seen if the drive works still. It took me ages to extract and convert the Sys7Pro disks from a img.bin in a stuffit file into normal, PC writable .IMGs that actually work.

So, does anyone know the correct way to do this, or possibly have better images on the 7.1 install for PowerBooks?

 

[24bit]

If your System images are good, I would inflate and write them to floppy by means of the BasiliskII emulator on your Sony.

The procedure will only work for 1.4MB disks of course. BII can write Mac floppies from a Windows or Linux host.

To tell the emulator about a inserted floppy, press Control + F1.

If your images are not good, Mac Anthology `99 DVD 1 would be a clean source.

Good luck!

 

[spiceyokooko]

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do here, but in my experience of working with floppy system installs is to have all the floppy install disks as disk images. Mount them all on the desktop and perform your installation from there. It's much faster than feeding in floppy disks and gets around any bad floppys that might cause the install to fail.

If you've got a working system on your PB, boot it from that, and separate out the system and finder from the system folder and put them in separate folders so the new system you're going to install doesn't install it over the old system, but creates a brand new fresh system folder.

If any of your PB 180 Install disks are dodgy, I may be able help you out as I think I have a set of PB 180 install disks as disk images, but I'd need to check as it might be for an older PB model.

 

[atariangamer]

What I'm trying to do is load System 7 Pro onto the PowerBook 180. I've got a set of disk images that are Sys7Pro, and after some major tweaking, they're into a format where Windows and Rawrite can handle them. I edited the disk tools image to contain the System Enabler 131 so it could boot correctly. In a random attempt at doing a straight Sys7Pro install, I copied the system folder from the Disk Tools disk to the hard drive, and behold, the Mac could boot without a floppy, and could run the installer disks.

I start going through a full install because it detected I had a PowerBook 180 and had gotten the correct software, And just before PowerTalk (I believe), it asked for the first install disk again, and when I put it in, it said that the installation had failed, or couldn't be written on the drive, and everything had been restored.

Now, the reason I did this is because the Sys7Pro Install disk 1 couldn't boot the PowerBook. It would say Welcome to Macintosh, but then the disk would stop spinning and absolutely nothing would happen. It would also appear to crash when I pushed the powerbutton to turn the frozen computer off. No error number, just blankness and some generic error text along with the bomb symbol.

Now, I was thinking that I just needed to run the installer as an update, not a new system install (not sure, my verified working Mac knowledge begins with OS 9 and the G3). So I wanted to get the original System 7.1 disks for PowerBook 180 (which are supposedly different). But when I got them, they were in weird files that nothing I tried would open (rawrite produced bad disks, UniExtract couldn't open em, and HFVexplorer didn't know what to do with them). So I just gave up and decided to ask.

@spiceyokooko: If you've got some different PowerBook 180 disks than the ones on MacintoshGarden, I'd love to give em a try.

@24bit: That's a really great idea, actually. I haven't messed with Mac emulation in awhile, but that'd be VERY useful...

 

[spiceyokooko]

@spiceyokooko: If you've got some different PowerBook 180 disks than the ones on MacintoshGarden, I'd love to give em a try.

I don't know what the disks on MacintoshGarden are to be honest. But I know for a certainty that the disk images I have are for a Powerbook, the only question is, which model. I've just looked at the images and it has an "Install me First' disk image and a "Install" disk image. Under the Install me first disk image it has a read me file which talks specifically about installing the system on Powerbooks and the need to ensure the correct enabler is installed. The enabler being shown on the Install disk is 111. When I loaded the installer, it definitely had a 'Install this system for a Powerbook 180 option', as well as for the 145, 160, 170 and 180.

The system to be installed on the disks is 7.1. There's about 7 disks I think, an Install me first, an Install disk, an Install 2 disk, a Macintosh basics, tidbits, fonts and printing. No Disk Tools, which I thought was curious.

If you feel these may be of use, buzz me a pm.

 

[atariangamer]

PM sent.

I just realized the disk images thing you mentioned first. That'd work great, actually. I'd just have to find a way to get all the images over to the drive and then get a working boot disk...oh, and make sure I've got the right image mounting software (one of the banes of the 7.5.3 install: no disk copy, no stuffit, nothing).

 

[spiceyokooko]

PM reply sent.

I tend to use a couple of utilities to mount disk images - Drop•disk and ShrinkWrap both of which pretty much do the same thing, although ShrinkWrap seems to have more facilities. They're both freeware too from what I understand, I've used them for years!

 

[atariangamer]

I had tried ShrinkWrap before, and found it not to work, even after I finally got Stuffit installed correctly. I'll have to give it another shot now.

But another thing that will help massively is if this ZIP Disk drive works. I'll have to get my PowerMac G4 running again but hey, 100MB of pure storage is a lot nicer than 1.4MB...