Mac OS 8.6

svanimpe

Does anyone know how to create Mac OS 8.5-8.6 installation discs on OS X ? I have tried several different ones, but they all either refuse to boot, or give errors halfway through the installation. I am trying to restore a 1999 iMac to its original state. It came with the original installation discs for 8.5, which still work, but are in Dutch, and I am trying to install an English version.

SomeGuy

Well, in that case the English versions of 8.5 or 8.6 located here: https://winworldpc.com/product/mac-os-8/85 *should * work.

There are two things to watch out for. First of all, some versions are tied to a specific Mac model. Those usually won't work on any other model.

The second thing is these CD images can be kind of tricky to burn to a CD. Some CD burning tools check for a valid ISO file system, and Apple doesn't use that.

Personally I recommend ImgBurn 2.4.4.0 under Windows, but be careful as some newer versions reportedly tried to install malware.

svanimpe

Thanks for the tip SomeGuy. The burning is tricky indeed, nothing I try seems to work. Can you recommend any tools for Mac? I currently use Toast or Apple's own Disk Utility.

scheurneus

Well, it is adware technically, but you can absolutely consider that malware. That said, I pretty much understand the person behind ImgBurn does want to earn a few bucks with it... In general, however, you really have to be careful when installing software, even paid software (ahem, Ashampoo).

TCPMeta

Transmac is a good program to burn the images but its for windows.

svanimpe

Sigh. I am getting really desparate here, I've wasted five CDRs already :( I have tried: simply burning it with Disk Utility, using Toast 5 on 10.1 and using Mac Volume (with option bootable), writing at slow speed, different brand CDRs, 3 different images including the installation CD for this exact model. None of them are readable. The iMac has trouble reading it and ask me to initialize the disc. Once in a while the disc seems readable (albeit slow), but I cannot boot from it.

psychobat

svanimpe wrote:

Sigh. I am getting really desparate here, I've wasted five CDRs already :( I have tried: simply burning it with Disk Utility, using Toast 5 on 10.1 and using Mac Volume (with option bootable), writing at slow speed, different brand CDRs, 3 different images including the installation CD for this exact model. None of them are readable. The iMac has trouble reading it and ask me to initialize the disc. Once in a while the disc seems readable (albeit slow), but I cannot boot from it.

Have you tried a cleaning disc? Could be the laser is dirty to the point that it is having a hard time reading a burned CD.

It is also possible that the laser itself has weakened to the point it can no longer read user burned CD's anymore, which you would either need a new optical drive for it or you would need an original copy of Mac OS 8.6 assuming it can still read commercially burned discs.

Do you happen to have another Macintosh of the same vintage you could try the bootable CD's you have currently made? If they booted on a different Mac, then it would prove its a problem with your iMac's optical drive and not with the CD's.

TCPMeta

What iMac model are we talking about here, is it the tray load or slot load?

You could pull out the hard drive and do a Disk Dump of the CD image to it, that way you can rebless the system folder. Or check out the old 68k mac emulator forums and see if you can find a guide on reblessing CD images. I know that classic macs are picky when it comes to the filesystem of a CD.

svanimpe

I'm talking about an iMac G3 (rev D) and iBook G3 (original clamshell). Can it still be the drive is faulty (or needs to be cleaned) if they read 100% of the original discs I feed them perfectly, have trouble either reading and/or booting all the CDRs I make?

SomeGuy

I have indeed seen CD drives with that exact mode of failure before. But i would still try and troubleshoot it a bit further.

Will it read CDs burned from some other computer? I would still suggest trying a PC with some other burning software. Another thing you might try is burning the CDs at a lower speed (4x or 8x), it sounds odd but I have seen that make a difference many times before.

You can try cleaning it, but usually this kind of thing is due to a damaged laser or a damaged lens. Lenses are actually made out of plastic and discolor after a time.

Also, you might consider grabbing a few rewritable CDs, although some older drives can have additional issues reading those.

(...and then there is this "dead" SCSI CD drive I keep around for adapter testing. It absolutely refuses to read any CD except for an old Windows 2000 CD-R, and then it is as happy as if it were new. WTF)

TCPMeta

Ok, so it's the Tray load style, it uses a EIDE interface. I have had issues with these, they used crappy optical drives. You can replace the drive but I would recommend to replace the drive. You can toss in a random laptop based optical drive but you would have to modify the bezel or yo can get a Pioneer DVR-118LBK with a IDE to USB adapter. I myself use to get these systems cheaply, gut them and make them headless for small server use with Darwin or YellowDog Linux.

This is all I can find on how to use modern software to create a bootable CD for classic macs.

wingzeroismine

While quite newer than your experiments here, I used to install versions of OS X on G4 powerbooks by making another partition and copying the disc image to it via disk utility. Due to their age USB booting certainly isn't likely, but if you had a firewire enclosure you could possibly write the disc to an external drive as well.

TCPMeta

Those iMacs didn't have Firewire. Sonnet had a CPU upgrade that added Firewire 400. OS X 10.3.9 was the highest version you can install unless there is a custom kernel floating around.

You can copy the CD image to the hard drive, rebless it then reboot. Toss in the CD after it has rebooted and install it that way.

I just hope he's holding down the C key while as soon as he hears the Mac turning on.

wingzeroismine

Whoops, missed that detail in the wikipedia article, the chances of having a firewire enclosure anyways are probably pretty slim.