Q: System 7.5.3 (and 7.6) Installation Problems on LC 475 and Performa 630
I am having an issue getting an operating system to install on two old Macs, an LC 475 and a Performa 630. No matter what manner in which I try to install System 7.5.3, I get an error at some stage during the install. The exact same disks worked with my LC III, but not my LC 475 or Performa 630. I will be going about my business and swapping disks in and out and suddenly (and at different stages each time), I'll be asked to "Please insert the disk: Install Disk 1". If I do that, it closes out the install and it says the following:
"An error occurred while trying to complete the installation. Installation was canceled, leaving your disk untouched."
So, thinking it could possibly be my floppy disks (though unlikely, since the same ones worked on the LC III), I used another copy of the System 7.5.3 install disks and moved them over to my Floppy Emu. I have the exact same problem. And as I say, this happens with both my LC 475 and Performa 630. They have different hard drives installed and each of them had working OS's prior to my attempts to wipe the drives and put fresh installations of 7.5.3 on. It's worth noting that I have an original copy of System 7.6 that I must have gotten while my mom was still working in education; I've tried those disks and had the same result. I have initialised the drives, tried partitioning the drives, repairing the drives, etc. etc. It seems that no matter what I try to get an OS onto either of these machines, I hit this stumbling block. One more point to add: my LC III has a SCSI2SD adapter with SD card, whereas the 630 and LC 475 have standard SCSI hard drives. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing this and what steps I might take to solve it? Thanks!
Macintosh LC III, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier, System 7.6, 32MB RAM, 25MHz
Posted on Mar 4, 2015 4:17 AM
To summarise:
You are using an LC 475 and a Performa 630.
You have tested conventional floppy disk install sets of both System 7.5.3 and 7.6.
Installation attempts via the real floppy drives were not successful.
Installation attempts of System 7.5.3 via (an SD flash memory card in) a Floppy Emu (internally connected instead of a floppy drive) have not been successful.
The 7.5.3 set of floppies as such has been tested OK with an LC III.
Hard disks had been reformatted before tests.
The above appears to cover all angles. System 7.5.3 and 7.6 are supported for all computers. System enablers are normally used for System 7.1 versions only. You have not indicated that the system disks in question are machine-specific. Therefore, one would assume that the installation should be OK; yet it does not work.
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP209
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP211
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP286
It is hard to find a logical explanation. Either the floppy drives in both the LC 475 and the Performa 630 have to be faulty (which is unlikely, and it still does not work when you try via the Floppy Emu), or both logic boards are defective. Or, both sets of floppies would have to have a common issue or limitation regarding the finalisation of an installation onto an LC 475 and a Performa 630, or perhaps all 68LC040 processor machines (the System 7.5.3 set works with an LC III), which does not seem to be too likely either.
Anyway, you could of course try an alternative installation method.
If you have access to the nineteen-files (US) version of System 7.5.3 previously downloadable from Apple, you could try that instead (the nineteen files were segments of one large self-mounting disk image; this was not a normal set of system disks, and it needed a bootable system on the hard disk or on a startup floppy). A (temporary) small operating system can be installed by dragging a copy of the system folder from a Network Access Disk 7.5 floppy onto an empty hard disk.
It should also be possible to carry out a "net install" of a set of conventional system disks. With a temporary system installed on the earlier empty hard disk (see about the Network Access Disk 7.5 above), the floppy drive will be free for subsequent file transfers. One could then copy each normal system floppy to the hard disk. The result will be a folder for each floppy. Again booting from a Network Access floppy, one could remove the temporary system folder from the hard disk and then try to carry out an installation via an installer in one of the folders. There are variants of this, involving mounted disk images and/or RAM disks.
Jan
Posted on Mar 5, 2015 3:09 AM