ExPostFacto and a Lombard Update - Advice?

[J English Smith]

Happy Monday, all.

I need to update the Lombard (w/512mb RAM)Powerbook that my mother "uses" so I can get Tiger running on it, along with more updated browsers for her.

I'm wondering whether the best thing is to use ExPostFacto to intstall 10.4.6 on the Lombard directly, or use one of my Pismos to get a hard drive loaded with a clean install of 10.4.6 or 10.4.11 and then transplant that drive into the Lombard.

Any words of wisdom? I read the text that accompanies the ExPostFacto download and it was a little scary.

 

[quinterro]

I have installed Tiger several times with a supported Mac (in my case a Sawtooth G4), then put the drive back in my Lombard without issue. It can run Tiger without changes, but the installer won't run directly on it.

Doing it this way you avoid any issues with XPostFacto. The only time I used that software I tried to put Panther on a Beige G3. It worked once, then the office had a power glitch. Panther and XPostFacto refused to work after that on that computer.

 

[Byrd]

Same thing here, once pulled a HD from my Pismo with 10.4.11 and put into a Lombard - surprised to see it boot fine without the need for XPostFacto, everything worked fine. With 512MB RAM and a speedy enough HD, it made for a good browsing and Office machine for a friend.

 

[J English Smith]

Thanks for the quick replies - guess I will do it that way - a little extra Pismo surgery to get it done, but not too bad, and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

[racepres]

It has been awhile, so be patient w/ me... But, Apple Talk via ethernet [crossover] cable, should let you do the deed without removing the HDD['s]. I would at least try it using target disk mode, on the Lombard.

Course, I have not done it using those particular machines... so I may stand corrected.

RP

 

[bibilit]

Xpostfacto worked great for me on a Powermac G3 Beige.

the only tip was to install panther from a 9.2 working OS, as the Powermac is willing to boot from 9.2 until Panther is set and running.(and to change the PRAM to a new one)

Once the first Panther cd install is gone, the PM fires 9.2, Xpostfacto is used to boot Panther (asking for the second cd, and finishing the install)

Xpostfacto will probably work on a Lombard the same way, avoiding to remove the HD.

I had some troubles with Xpostfacto at first (i only had 10.2 on it instead of Mac Os 9)

 

[coius]

First thing's first. If you are having issues installing from the disc, set the CPU throttle to 8 (which is sensible). It has to do with the SCSI bus, and possibly initialization. Even if you don't install on a SCSI drive, it will possibly help, due to issues with OS X and the SCSI bus.

I normally turn on Show Panic Text and Verbose (helps)

When I did mine, I booted from an OS 9 CD. and partitioned the drive. I *ALWAYS* put the OS 9 as the second partition and at the bottom of the drive (if you use Drive setup in OS 9, partition it in two partitions, make sure the OS 9 is at the bottom)

This allows the OS X to at least be the first part of the drive that gets looked at when it boots. If you still have issues, use the OS 9 volume as a "helper" volume. I had issues with 10.4 (not 10.3 that will install without XPostFacto) where I had to use the OS 9 volume as a helper. It installs the boot files onto the OS 9 volume and can aide in the booting process.

When you install, do not, I repeat DO NOT format the OS X partition from within OS X. it needs to be done under OS 9 if you install tiger. XPost Facto installed files on the OS X partition that not only aides and eases the install, but also when do the intial boot to install, it's not actually booting from the CD/DVD. It boots from the OS X files (going back to the OS 9 helper part) as it has modified files including the file that is modified that allows Tiger to look past the issue with no firewire.

So here is a step-by-step procedure that I have done:

1. Boot from OS 9 CD.

2. Launch Drive Setup

(be sure to backup your data first!)

3. Partition the drive. Make sure you have at least 6GB free for tiger. Paritition it into 2 (or more) partitions with the partition you plan to install OS X onto at the very top of it. If you have another partition, plan it to be below the OS X partition. Then put the OS 9 partition at the bottom of the setup (I have done as little as 350-400MB as a minimal-custom install for OS 9)

4. Go ahead and partition. Once you get done, name the volumes on the desktop accordingly (like "OS X for the OS X partition, "Classic/etc.." for OS 9, other partitions what you want

5. Install OS 9. do whatever you want to setup the system, install what you need

6. Reboot to OS 9 (you should probably eject the OS 9 CD)

7. Do updates and while you're on the net, grab the XPost Facto installer.

8. Once you are ready, pop in your 10.4 disc (CD/DVD), and we are going to set a few options

Go into the firmware options. Turn on "Show Panic Text" and "Verbose" To be on the safe side, go ahead and slide the CPU scaling to 8, you can play with this later if you want. Make sure L2 Cache is *NOT* check marked. This causes issues and in the past I have never gotten it to work.

9. go ahead and get to the main part of XPostFacto. Click on the volume you want to install onto (OS X partition) then click the Installer disc in the "install from" Click "Install from Disc"

10. It will do some stuff then restart. Do your normal install, whatever you want to do. When it restarts, it may, or may not boot to OS 9. if it does, open XPostFacto and select the OS X partition and restart (Not Startup Disk! It will freeze the machin 9/10!!!)

When you get into OS X after it's setup, install XPostFacto for OS X (.dmg version) as this will allow you to boot back into OS 9/Pick your boot volume. As you do updates, from time to time it's going to complain about the boot files. Make sure you keep those in check. You can open XPostFacto and go to the "install" Menu and have it install Everything.

This should get you going quickly. Mind you, I discovered it before it was published on their site (and even posted it on AppleFritter back in the day) if you try to boot from a FireWire drive off of a Blue and White/FireWire PCI card, and have issues, use the OS 9 volume as a helper. However, there are some issues. I ran into this. Some FireWire chipsets (including the Oxford 911 chipset) do not like working as boot volumes. It has been documented, but I have successfully booted OS X from a firewire drive on a Beige G3 with a FireWire card, as well as from FireWire on a Blue and White using firewire and an internal drive as a helper volume.

Let me know if this helps!