Upgrading from 9.2 to 10.2

Again it would be helpful if you provided links, this time to the discs on eBay, so we can see exactly to what you are referring. Any later OS is an upgrade to an earlier so maybe they are just using it in those loose terms. You also have to be careful that you get discs that will install on your computer. Many people sell discs that came with old computers, but those gray colored discs will only install on that particular model. Getting black retail installer discs is usually the best method.

Don provides lots of information on partitioning. You can just use Disk Utility on the Jaguar installer discs for partitioning. I would make a back up of all your data, and in particular your version of OS9 in case you want to use Classic.

It's kind of hard to tell anything from the fuzzy picture but maybe somebody else will recognize them.

One thing to do would be to ask the seller if he/she used these particular discs to do the upgrade. As I and Don have both commented, we don't think a direct 9.2 to Jaguar upgrade exists. The seller just said this was part of a larger batch and the seller had used some to upgrade. The seller didn't say how many steps it took and if these were identical to the ones used to upgrade. We're just trying to save you some grief. 🙂 What do the labels say exactly? Maybe they are upgrade discs, but only if you have 10.1 installed.

Hi, Bryan -

There is no upgrade disk that can take OS 9.2.2 to OSX 10.2 . There is no software 'family' relationship between the two; OS 9.2.2 was the last of the 'old' series of OSs, and OSX 10.0 was the first of a new series.

If OS 9 (any version) is present on the hard drive when OSX (any version) is installed, OSX will be installed alongside of OS 9, leaving both OSs present, intact, and usable (separately).

In order to install OSX, you will need to get the full-install retail disk set for the version you wish to install.

Unfortunately, none of the retail disk sets for OSX include the ability to install OS 9 (any version). If you need to re-imnstall OS 9.2.2, you will need to use a retail disk for OS 9.2.1 and then apply the download update for OS 9.2.2 (installable only when the machine is booted to OS 9).

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Re partitioning the disk -

Check to see whether it may already be partitioned. On that model, OS 9 is also restricted to booting from the first 8GB of hard drive space -
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22193

Unlike OSX's installer, the installer for OS 9 does not check for verification that that limitation has been complied with, and will install on volumes larger than 8GB. In such cases serendipity often places all of the OS within the first 8GB of the drive - when that happens, it runs fine; when that doesn't happen, the OS will either refuse to run or some of its services will not be available.

If the drive has already been partitioned, you should be able to use it as-is, provided there is sufficient disk space for an install of OSX 10.2 (which likes at least 3GB left unused); yuo can reduce the disk space OSX needs by selecting to not install all language versions when setting up the install (all is the default; a reduced set can be defined in the installer).

If you do need to partition the drive, you will lose the OS 9 (and everything else) already on the hard drive - whether using OS 9's Drive Setup or OSX's Disk Utility to do the partitioning, the process will erase the entire drive. Note - if you use OSX's Disk Utility to do the partitioning, be sure to select the option to install OS 9 Drivers; if that option is not selected, OS 0 will not be able to mount the drive. This means that you will not be able to install OS 9 onto it from a CD, nor use it for booting to OS 9.

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There is an alternative to having to get a retail OS 9 Install CD in order to re-install OS 9. OS 9 can be copied and remain functional (unlike OSX which requires the use of a cloning utility). This means that you can copy (via drag and drop) the OS 9 System Folder and its primary subordinate folders, "Documents" and "Applications (Mac OS 9)" to an external drive, partition the drive, then copy that stuff back to the hard drive - it should then still work.

Note - if you do this, be sure the external drive has been formatted as Mac OS Extended (also called HFS+). If it has been formatted as a PC volume (as many thumb drives are), you will lose certain file characteristics required in order for the OS to remain functional - the files will be rendered useless.

It is very hard to respond to the Leopard upgrade comment out of context with the other post about needing 9.2 to install Leopard. It would be good to provide a link to that. Generally Leopard has no use for OS9 since it can't run it as Classic. The main reason for installing OS9 before installing OSX would be to update the firmware ([Mac OS X: Available firmware updates for upgrading from OS9 to OSX|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117]), but I don't think any computer capable of running Leopard can also boot to OS9, so I don't know what's going on there.

Anyway, back to the G3. Don't confuse upgrade discs with full installer discs. Usually true "upgrade" disks are designed to install on top of an earlier OS version if a new version was released just after computers were shipped with an earlier version. I can't say I know for sure but it strikes me as being highly unlikely that there are any Jaguar OS disks that act as upgrade disks for an original OS9 install. For example, Tiger upgrade discs require Panther 10.3.9 be installed and won't work if you want to jump from 10.2 to 10.4

So, your computer might need to have OS9 installed if you have to update the firmware. Check the firmware updates page I linked above.

You would also need to be able to boot to another drive/disc if you do have to partition the drive (I know some G3s require that for OSX installations), and that could be an OS9 disk.

Personally I would go for Panther on that machine. Panther seems to still have some viability - at least from what I see of people still posting on the Panther and earlier forums. Yes, almost nobody is updating software for it, and there aren't any Security Updates, but people seem to get along in a quiet fashion with it, even on the web. I am not sure it would require any more resources than Jaguar. I recall having Panther running on my G3 233MHz beige for a while (long story). You might want more RAM (I put 500+MB RAM in my G3) but pretty much any version of OSX would be happier with more RAM.

Decide what you want to do with this computer. It's not going to be a blazing fast machine running the latest video. You can probably find a browser that will work with a lot of web sites, but may find things such as Flash requirements stop you on some sites.

Also don't forget HD size limitations. OSX will need room to install, and then it will need room to run (a difference from OS9). I check what amount of virtual memory my computer uses with Activity Monitor (not sure if it's the same on earlier versions) and then triple that to leave wiggle room. My G4 uses 6GB HD space for virtual memory so I leave 18GB free at all times. OSX does not like to be crowded (it crashes if you really crowd it). Jag. or Panther on that machine won't need 6GB but it may take up a fair chunk of your 10GB.