Just to recap my miserable boring infuriating problems trying to reinstall an operating system on my 5300: I wiped the drive and partitioned it. All attempts to get a network going again so as to reinstall OS 8.5 from the CD failed, so I bought a SCSI adapter to connect via SCSI disk mode.
This connection has been inconsistent to say the least: sometimes the 5300 boots up normally even though the adapter is plugged in; sometimes it goes into SCSI disk mode but its icons never appear on the desktop of the other computer; but on occasion the setup has worked the way it's supposed to, so I could try to install the OS. With uniformly negative results: both a full customized installation and a standard "for any computer" installation cause the desktop Mac (a 7600, OS 8.6, 117MB, if that's in any way relevant) to freeze about 80 per cent of the way through. The new system nonetheless *looks* like it's present on the 5300 HD, but (a) it won't boot, and (b) after starting up from a floppy the mere presence of this plainly corrupted batch of files causes weird behavior and crashes until it's trashed. It *is* possible to do the "core system software" installation all by itself, but then the installer refuses to add the rest of the extensions, saying "this version of the system cannot be upgraded." I also tried dragging the installer software (including the massive installation tome) over to the laptop HD and installing from there, but the installer refused to run and yet again crashed the computer. I've long since lost count of the number of bombs that have fallen around here in the last few days, but at a guess maybe ten times as many as have shown up in the past ten years. So then I downloaded all 19 parts of system 7.5.3, with the idea of transferring the combined disk image via the SCSI connection and installing it that way. This hasn't worked because I haven't been able to activate the SCSI connection at any time today: the icons simply don't show up on the desktop. Then as a last resort I tried transferring the individual disk images with floppies, but that doesn't work EITHER: in the middle of copying the system file itself a "disk error, file cannot be read" message pops up. And *now* just to drive a final nail in the coffin it no longer seems to be possible to copy the system from one of the bootable disk tools floppies onto the laptop's HD: the same disk error message appears whenever I try. So what to try next???? Is there any way to rescue this thing, or is it destined to be a paperweight forever? Best, Victoria -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
