As we reported yesterday, the Mac OS 9.1 disk that ships with Mac OS X won’t install on some Macs such as the Titanium PowerBook G4. However, there are workarounds, as several MacCentral readers have noted.
Kenneth Benson said he experienced this problem on his Titanium PowerBook, but got around it by using the System Restore disk to initialize and partition his hard drive before installing OS X. The next generation operating system is now running fine, as well as Classic, despite one glitch, he said.
“The glitch I ran into is that Classic will only run from what I originally intended to be a backup version,” Benson said. “I partitioned my hard drive (10 GB), leaving the second partition at only 600 MB, just enough to store a backup version of 9.1. Next I restored the system software onto the main partition. When it was finished I copied 9.1 onto the smaller partition. Next I loaded all my software that would be run in Classic, and then installed OS X. The problem I ran into is that, when selecting my startup disk, I only have the option of 9.1 on the backup partition or OSX on the main partition, but not 9.1 on the main, as I would like. I guess this not a big deal as the system runs fine; the only adjustment I had to make was to make sure to select the main partition as the scratch disk preference in Photoshop as there was no room on the backup partition.”
Eric Browning also successfully installed OS X on a TiPB by using the included software restore/install CDs that came with the TiPB. He said that the included 9.1 CD in OS X doesn’t have the necessary system resources to start a PowerBook.
“Also, you can dual boot at startup if you hold down the option key,” Browning added. “One side note though, is that you must partition your hard drive and place OS 9 on one partition and OS X on the other.”
Finally, Robert Stein concurs that the software restore disk does work. He used it this weekend on his 400 MHz Titanium PowerBook with no problem.
“This gives you a working OS 9.1 (although you also get the rest of the original disk image at the same time),” Stein said.