iMac installation of Adobe Creative Suite 2- Mac OS X Extended Volume
I'm having an issue trying to install Adobe Creative Suite 2 onto my iMac. I'm running OS X Tiger. I already previously had Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign installed on my computer but after a crashing problem I took my computer in to a store to be fixed. Now that i have the computer back i can't install the programs on my computer. The installer gives me a message saying that the startup disk and disk i install on must be Mac OS Extended and to go to Preferences and Startup Disk and select an extended disk. There's only one disk for me to choose however, and i can't figure any way around it. Is there a way to format my hard drive as OS Extended so i can reinstall these programs?
For your (or any) hard disk drive to be formatted differently than it is, you
would have to essentially start over afterward with all new installations on
what would then be a blank hard disk drive. Reformatting is done on the
lowest level of the hard disk drive through use of a disk utility.
If the store who did the work on your Mac did not format the hard drive to
HFS+ (extended) format, they would have had a few other options with
the disk utility; one would be to use a Windows format (essentially fat32)
or one of those offered on the Apple boot disc your OSX installer lives on;
those are HFS, HFS+ and UFS. The latter is a unix file system and has
limitations to the casual Mac user experience.
You may be able to clone your system off (but have doubts) to an external
HFS+ enclosed USB 2.0 HDD and check it, repair it if possible from Disk Utility,
before using the clone as a source to copy back to the reformatted HDD inside
the computer.
Essentially if the shop did somehow install a system into your computer
and it isn't properly formatted (see Get Info window of highlighted Mac HD)
the shop should be told about the problem and ask if they can move the stuff
off the computer, reformat it correctly, then put it all back for you. No charge.
Is your iMac a G4 or a new Intel®?
If it IS a G4, you'd use a FireWire
external and not a USB 2.0 to clone.
For your (or any) hard disk drive to be formatted differently than it is, you
would have to essentially start over afterward with all new installations on
what would then be a blank hard disk drive. Reformatting is done on the
lowest level of the hard disk drive through use of a disk utility.
If the store who did the work on your Mac did not format the hard drive to
HFS+ (extended) format, they would have had a few other options with
the disk utility; one would be to use a Windows format (essentially fat32)
or one of those offered on the Apple boot disc your OSX installer lives on;
those are HFS, HFS+ and UFS. The latter is a unix file system and has
limitations to the casual Mac user experience.
You may be able to clone your system off (but have doubts) to an external
HFS+ enclosed USB 2.0 HDD and check it, repair it if possible from Disk Utility,
before using the clone as a source to copy back to the reformatted HDD inside
the computer.
Essentially if the shop did somehow install a system into your computer
and it isn't properly formatted (see Get Info window of highlighted Mac HD)
the shop should be told about the problem and ask if they can move the stuff
off the computer, reformat it correctly, then put it all back for you. No charge.
Is your iMac a G4 or a new Intel®?
If it IS a G4, you'd use a FireWire
external and not a USB 2.0 to clone.
My Mac is a G4, I've had it for over 4 years. I'm guessing the easiest thing would be to take it back to the place i got repairs and ask them to reformat it correctly?
Is this something simple enough that i can do on my own with disk utility? And if it wipes out all the data can i then simply use my OSX Tiger install disc to reinstall OSX? Or is it something i need to have someone do for me so that i dont ruin my hard drive?
If you can determine, by looking into the system (profiler, or 'get info' on
the HDD itself) to see what format type is shown, then you'd know more
and could deal with the shop with a little bit more knowledge. Once
you are sure about what you are looking at, the tech at the shop should
be able to do the tasks simply enough; you may need to leave it there.
Since the hard drive needs, or appears to need, reformating, everything
on the hard disk drive will be lost. All your applications, saved works and
files, user information, etc; as a part of erasing/reformatting the hard drive.
A shop may be able to move your files over to another HDD and reformat
your hard disk drive and then move all your files back. I know I could do it
and I only have an externally enclosed FireWire hard disk drive and the OS
installer discs for my systems; and a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner from
Bombich Software. It's donationware and will run unrestricted from download.
Once you make a clone (to a properly formatted external FireWire HDD)
you can see if it works to boot your computer, prior to erase/reformat
or zeroing data on the computer's internal drive in the process of eventual
reinstall. You can re-clone the moved content of your whole computer
drive back into the computer's hard disk drive using the CCC utility. This
requires you have a FW enclosed HDD large enough to handle it. [Of
course, you could also use CCC to move/clone just the System with its
user folders and stuff; and then reinstall all your apps later on.]
Be prepared to lose all your data presently on the hard disk drive; unless
you have the tools and want to learn how to clone your computer's HDD
content to a FW external drive and see if it can restart your computer.
Once you can get a good clone made, you then can think about wiping
the computer's internal hard disk drive. If, at this point, something does
happen and you can't use a proven clone to restore (you'd use CCC
again to move it back properly, since you can't drag and drop copy a
system in OSX) you'd still use the booted OSX installer disc#1 to use
the Disk Utility in a drop-down menu below "Installer" and use the tools
in there. The basic ones you'd see, "repair disk" and "repair disk perm-
issions" won't do it; additional tools are in another menu in D.U. and
since Tiger is a little different than the Panther I'm using today, I'm
not really familiar and can't reference the D.U. in my Mac to see the
exact page layout in that utility. I've used Tiger's D.U. in my other Mac.
PS: If you were using Panther, I'd say to check to see if you
have "Journaling" turned on in the Disk Utility (native one in
the System) because HFS+ with Journaling disabled may
also cause a problem with some applications. But if your
computer was formatted 'Standard HFS' it'd need a reformat.
