From: Al Poulin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [G] Adding a HD to beige
running OSX Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:30:00 -0400 Andrew: I cannot deal with all your
content here, but I have a few ideas that will help. On Oct 9, 2005, at 6:39 AM,
G-List wrote:
SNIP
Once I had everything working I reformatted the new drive with the OSX
drive utility, zeroing the data. I also installed the OS9 drivers in
this process. I copied all my data from the OS9 disk to this drive and
tested it as a boot drive. It worked perfectly so I took the
opportunity
to reformat the 2GB scsi, then copied the OS9 files back. This took
care
of fragmentation that had occurred over the years.
Now my original motivation for installing the new disk is that the 6GB
OS 10.2.8 disk had gotten overfilled and severely fragmented. I
installed the update to iTunes through software update a couple of
weeks
ago and ended up losing the use of the OSX disk when it froze.
(software
update didn't mention that it needed a faster processor than the 266
that was in the beige at the time)
You are using a number of relatively small hard drives, all of which
may easily lose the elbow room they need when OS X is aboard. This is
more critical for OS X than with OS 9. The general advice is really
two pronged:
With OS X, always have at least 15 to 20 percent of your hard drive
with free space. Even with OS 9 alone, you approach dangerous
territory if only 10 percent is free. With OS X, always have at least
2 or 3 GB free. OS X requires this elbow room to best manage itself
and your files. So this places a very tight constraint on how you use
your drives.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and advice. I agree
with the free space problem, that was my motivation for adding the 4gb
drive. I realize the drives are extremely small for this day and age,
but these three are all I have to work with at the moment. I have a
firewire card coming so perhaps I'll be able to get a decent size drive
to go with it before long.
In the meantime I've got to make do with these. My original hard drive
problems were no doubt caused by the severe fragmentation and extremely
small amount of free space left on the drive. I've taken care of the
free space problem, now I just need to get the fragmentation fixed.
I was able to get the drive working again with Norton from OS9, but
lost
some files and some of the functionality of the OSX mail program.
Norton found numerous problems in the directory files and everything
else keeping track of where data was on the drive, so I think some
things overwrote other files. I've got this disk working well now, but
really think it needs to be reformatted and defragmented to operate
efficiently and avoid more directory problems.
Never use Norton Utilities with OS X hard drives. NU for OS 9 does not
know about OS X file structures. Many experts on these lists now say
never use Norton Utilities...PERIOD! They say it does more damage than
good, even in the OS 9 environment. I understand there is no version
of Norton Utilities for OS X. Instead, look into using Diskwarrior
and/or TechTool Pro, both of which are known to be reliable and
beneficial. They complement each other, since Diskwarrior is
unparalleled at doing the single thing that it does best. There is
also some thing called Drive Genius, apparently rather new. I have not
seen test reports on it.
I was unable to access the drive with any software from either operating
system, and was only able to access my data after trying Norton out of
desperation. I'll take your advice and not use it in the future. I
hadn't used it in several years but was out of other options, and
couldn't access the net for advice. I don't have the other software you
suggest, but will put it on the list to get.
I've torn the house apart and cannot find my OSX CD for 10.2, just the
one for 10.1.5, so I can't reinstall. I'd like to make a copy of the
data on the OSX 6GB disk so I can reformat this disk. Then copy the
data
back in a more organized fashion. I've run disk utility on the OSX disk
to repair permissions and there are several files it seems unable to
repair. No matter how many times I run it some files for frameworks/hfs
and in the usr/ directory don't get corrected. The same errors show up
everytime. I can copy and paste the report later if requested.
If this is the disk that you treated with Norton Utilities, maybe the
Norton did some damage. After copying/backing up the data on this
disk, perhaps it would be best to reformat and install OS X anew. By
the way, the OS X 10.3 Panther runs better than 10.2, especially on the
older, slower Macs.
I'm not going to purchase another copy of 10.2, so I'll wait till I have
a few extra dollars and pick up a copy of 10.3 from someone who has
upgraded. Is 10.4 a bad idea (or non-option) at this point for a beige?
Kris, if you are reading this, thank you for the email you sent me. Your
advice got things working for me again. :)
Out of all problems I've had, one good thing happened. I had a PCI USB
card that has never worked for me, and now it works for some reason!
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