Hello. I bought a PowerBook 190 off of eBay for $39. It's not a -cs- version, just the classic 190.
I would like to reinstall System 7.5.2 (Or 7.5.3) on this PowerBook, but I am having trouble booting from the disk images. The floppy drive was repaired, so it's not broken.
Any way to get a fresh copy of System 7?
Thank you.
PowerBook 190-OTHER, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier
To begin with, what kind of disk images do you have (and how have you made floppies from these)?
Is the PowerBook 190 otherwise starting up OK?
Do you have access to a working Disk Tools floppy for the PB 190?
See also the PowerBook 190 manual for "normal" system software installation procedures.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA862/en_US/0306899APWRBK190UG.pdf
I have off-the-internet System 7.5.3 disk images (in a weird .IMAGE format). I don't have access to the disk tools floppy because they don't boot (again, weird images)
The PowerBook 190 starts up fine, it just has a lot of personal information that the original owner had... Plus some things get sporadic at sometimes, due to the old software. (Original Installation of System 7)
I can't find the original disks from Apple's downloads. I want to, because they are completely genuine.
OK. The System 7.5.3 downloadable from Apple was not a normal floppy-based system with a bootable first installation disk. The US version, as an example, had totally nineteen floppy-sized files. These nineteen files were distributed with a MacBinary encoding (.bin).
One would transfer (copy) the nineteen .bin files to the hard disk of the receiving computer (here, the PB 190) on 1.44 MB floppy disks. Once there, using StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 or 5.5, one would decode the nineteen .bin files. This would result in one .smi and eighteen .part files (together constituting one large disk image), supposed to be placed in a common folder on the hard disk. Double-clicking on the first file (the .smi) will mount the entire self-mounting image. The System 7.5.3 installer will be found in the mounted image.
Please post back if you do not have StuffIt Expander for this Macintosh computer.
You could make a bootable floppy on the PB 190 from a Disk Tools PPC file (http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/System/Mac_OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPC.img.bin) via the Make a Floppy command under the Utilities menu in Disk Copy 6.3 3 (https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1262?locale=en_US). StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 or 5.5 is needed to decode the .bin files here too. Please note that the Disk Copy utility is not used with the System 7.5.3 files.
Addendum
As mentioned, the Disk Copy utility is not used with the System 7.5.3 files described above.
However, if your files really have the .image suffix once decoded, it would indicate that they are Disk Copy 4.2 type images of conventional system disks. In this case, Disk Copy 4.2 (http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/Disk_Copy_4.2.sea.bin) may be used to create properly sector-copied floppies (in addition to Disk Copy 6.3.3).
The ones that I got has the .IMAGE suffix, the .SMI suffix, and the .PART Suffix. I will use all three.
In order to make software installations easier (especially, the segmented System 7.5.3 version), it is often a good idea to buy an inexpensive PC Card adapter for CompactFlash (to be used in one of the two PB 190 PC Card slots). You can then use a standard CompactFlash card for file transfers. A CF card (reformatted to Mac and containing a system folder) can even be made bootable.
I found a System 7.5.2 floppy disk maker inside the PowerBook's system folder. I have made the full 25 diskette installation (14 without all of the original junk).
PowerBook 190 & System 7
