Mac OS 8 won't boot from HDD - Performa 630

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Level 1

8 points

Mac OS 8 won't boot from HDD - Performa 630

Hiya again,

I'm working on a Performa 630 for a friend and trying to reinstall the OS to mac a better system, I've already upgraded the RAM with a 32MB stick to make 36MB and have given it a 20GB HDD. I've tried to install Mac OS 8 to the HDD and can complete the installer, however on reboot the system shows the happy mac icon for a quick second before the screen goes white and restarts and shows the ? floppy icon. I haven't a clue why it's doing this as it's supposed to support OS8 and the specs are adequete and I am formatting it to the Mac OS Standard (HFS) file system so I'm at a loss.

Any help greatly apprieciated, thanks.

Edit: Oh, and when booting back into the installer CD, it says it's rebuilding the desktop on the HDD, just if this makes a difference.

Message was edited by: NaokiS

Posted on May 23, 2012 3:57 AM

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Answer 1

Jeff

Level 6

12,058 points

May 23, 2012 9:17 AM in response to NaokiS

Are you using the retail/universal installer OS 8 disk (white with large "8" across the face of it) or are you using another model Mac's Restore disk? If it's a Restore disk, that can cause problems because they have a model-specific OS build that doesn't necessarily support other models. If you used the retail/universal OS 8 installer disk, did you use the included version of Drive Setup 1.3 to format the hard drive? If you did, that's the first thing that you should correct. That version of Drive Setup had a bug in it, and many years ago, Apple sent out "Drive Setup 1.3.1" CDs to customers upon request. You should download Drive Setup 1.6.1 and copy it to a floppy disk. It is a compressed file, so you'll need Stuffit Expander to expand it. Once expanded, you'll have a self-mounting image file that you can double-click. Drag the disk image icon to your floppy disk to copy Drive Setup to it. When the Performa is booted to the installer CD, insert the floppy disk and run Drive Setup. Do not choose to format the hard drive, but choose the "Update Disk Driver" option (I think it's listed under the "Functions" drop-down menu at the top of the screen). After updating the disk driver, try rebooting the Performa from the internal HDD. If you still have problems, you may need to reinstall the OS 8. If you do, you should uncheck the "Update Disk Driver" option, so that the newer disk driver isn't replaced with the older version.

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Answer 2

Jeff

Level 6

12,058 points

May 23, 2012 9:50 AM in response to NaokiS

Another suggestion I'd make concerns partitioning the 20 GB drive into at least 2 volumes. The disadvantage of OS 8 was its inability to boot from an HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) volume, although an HFS+ volume can be accessed for data storage. HFS (Mac OS Standard) formatting wastes more and more storage capacity as overall drive size increases, but HFS+ formatting reduces the minimum allocation block size to 4K, which is critical when using larger hard drives. Some users would create a first HFS partition for installing/booting OS 8, and set its size to about 2 GBs. The remainder of the drive would be partitioned as an HFS+ volume, to maximize the available storage capacity.

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