On Tuesday, December 16, 2003, at 10:00 PM, Chris Hood wrote:
Hey gang,
I'm fairly new to Compact Macs and was hoping someone could give me a point
in the right direction. I managed a good deal on a few locally and thought
it'd be neat to have one in the kitchen to check email and simple stuff like
that.
Right now I'm working with a Color Classic - it turns on ok and soon gives
the "where the heck did you put the System folder" icon. I've found a copy
of System 6 (downloaded as a .sit file) to install on it but can't seem to
make a bootable disk for it. Currently I'm working from an ibook running OS
X.3 and using a usb driven VST floppy drive, and even managed to find a
couple of Mac formatted floppies (I'm not sure if the CC's superdrive will
accept IBM formatted floppies - like I said I'm new to the old school :) to
try and revive the CC and install System 6.
OK, first thing, I don't think System 6 will run on a Color Classic - I think it's too new of a computer for System 6. I think you'd have better luck with System 7.5. Another snag I have found is that the Macintosh System X cannot write disks that those old machines can boot properly. Or at least I haven't had good luck with it. Also, with System X, you can't use Disk Copy to write floppies, since machines running X have no internal floppy drives (only USB). I'd suggest making the disks with an older Macintosh - something beige with an internal floppy and System 9 or 8.
Also, chances are, if the Color Classic won't boot now, then the hard drive is likely bad or missing. Of course, it could just be blank, or have a corrupt system folder, but I've found that more often than not, if a compact gives the flashing disk, then the drive is dead - since it's pretty hard to accidentally erase a drive to the point where the system won't boot, and a lot of people get rid of compacts when the drive dies, since they don't know how to replace the hard drives. I don't know how many free SE's I've gotten because the old 20meg 'washing machine' drives bit the dust. It's a ten minute job to change the drive out, replacement drives are dirt cheap, and chances are, whatever you put in there will be bigger and more reliable than the old one.
Anyway, on an older Mac running System 9 or older, download a set of System 7.something disks from the 'net as Disk Copy images, and write them to floppies, and use that to install on the Color Classic. You can also connect a SCSI compact disc drive and install System 7 from a CD-ROM disc. The CD-ROM method may be easiest if you have an iBook with a CD burner. Go to http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/ Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/ Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/ and download all the files. Open Disk Copy, and use the burn image tool to burn the image to a disc (select the first file in Disk Copy, it'll figure the rest out). Then, connect a SCSI compact disc player to the Color Classic, and boot from that. You may have to hold down the C key on the keyboard to boot from a CDROM.
Good Luck!
Ian Primus [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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