Bruce O'Neel wrote:

>Hi,
>I see that you are in South Carolina, right?  Do you have another
>Mac or would it be handy if someone sent you a diskette?  
>  
>
I have a PowerBook G4 with a USB floppy drive.  I found the images, but 
10.3's Disk Utility won't write them to disk - some "read error" halts 
the process.  I'm not sure if it's the image itself, Disk Utility, or 
the fact that my floppy drive is USB.  I've tried running old versions 
of Disk Utility through the Classic environment but had no luck with 
that either. I've also tried dd-ing the image to disk, but the result 
was unbootable.

So really, I think I have what I need hardware-wise, but I haven't been 
able to find ther right combination of software to make these floppies.  
I don't think it's necessary I be sent a floppy - yet ;)

Any idea what the best way to make a 7.5 boot floppy under Mac OS 10.3 
with a USB floppy drive is?

Alan Dipert

>I'd be happy to, but, I don't live in the US.  Maybe someone 
>else could volunteer...
>
>cheers
>
>bruce
>
>
>On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 12:11:22PM +0000, Bruce O'Neel wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>When you did the partition table, did you have a MacOS or HFS one
>>left?  If so things aren't so bad.
>>
>>What you need is the 7.5 Network Access disk referenced from:
>>
>> http://macfaq.org/software/macos.shtml
>>
>>and put that on a diskette. You also might need a disktools diskette
>>to boot from and then you can format the hfs partition on your hard disk
>>and copy the contents of the 7.5 network access disk to your hard disk
>>and it should then boot.
>>
>>Once you do that you can again run the booter and boot the 1.6.2 
>>INSTALLSBC kernel.  Once you do that choose the utility menu and
>>then choose run /bin/sh and type
>>
>>disklabel /dev/sd0
>>
>>and could you send the output?
>>
>>cheers
>>
>>bruce
>>
>>
>>On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 12:00:50AM -0500, Alan Dipert wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Howdy,
>>>I gave the 1.6.2 softfloat install kernel from the FTP site you linked 
>>>to a shot, and it worked well until it tried to format the disk.  I was 
>>>able to configure the network through sysinst as well as partition.  
>>>However, when it tried to newfs it gave a "no space available" and 
>>>segfaulted.
>>>
>>>It seems the old System 7 install is nuked; I don't know much about Macs 
>>>but it would seem there is no bootable sector on the disk.  The computer 
>>>shows a floppy disk with a blinking question mark at boot.
>>>
>>>What's the best way to revive this system?  Is it possible to boot the 
>>>machine from floppy, and do a NetBSD FTP install that way?  Thanks in 
>>>advance for help.
>>>
>>>Alan Dipert
>>>
>>>Bruce ONeel wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Alan Dipert <ad@neologic.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 00:36:44 -0500
>>>>>From: Alan Dipert <ad@neologic.net>
>>>>>Subject: PowerBook 540c and NetBSD/mac68k
>>>>>To: port-mac68k@NetBSD.org
>>>>>
>>>>>Hello,
>>>>>I attempted to install NetBSD 2.0 on a PowerBook 540c that's currently 
>>>>>running System 7.1, and ran into some trouble.  I tried a "Quick" 
>>>>>install with sysinst as outlined in INSTALL.html.
>>>>>
>>>>>Using the netbsd-INSTALLSBC.gz kernel and Booter, the boot gets 
>>>>>relatively far but hangs on "root file system type: ffs."  The kernel 
>>>>>also reports that "PRAM time does not appear to have been read 
>>>>>correctly," a message that apparently is the result of a dead PRAM 
>>>>>battery.  I'm unsure as to how these two messages relate or as to how 
>>>>>crucial a new PRAM battery is.  While the computer is hanging on the ffs 
>>>>>message, the machine accepts keyboard input.
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>The PRAM message seems to be "normal".  I ignore it.
>>>>
>>>>You do need to use the softfloat build from
>>>>ftp://ftp.ziaspace.com/pub/NetBSD/m68k, the likelyhood of the fpu 
>>>>emulator working the the LC040 in your 540 is small.
>>>>
>>>>Sadly the 2.0 mac68k install is broken.  This isn't a pb540 or softfloat
>>>>issue, this is for all mac68k systems.  The simpliest might be to
>>>>first install 1.6.2 and then do the 2.0 upgrade.  That combo seems
>>>>to work well.
>>>>
>>>>If you want to do the 2.0 install without installing 1.6.2 first you
>>>>can.  My memory is that the disk label is written ok, but the newfs
>>>>doesn't happen.  If you want to do this I'll try to run an install on
>>>>another powerbook 540
>>>>this weekend and write down the exact steps.
>>>>
>>>>1.6, 1.6.1, 1.6.2, and 2.0 all run well on a powerbook 540c.  I'm using
>>>>Squeak on X on NetBSD on a 540c to write this message.
>>>>
>>>>cheers
>>>>
>>>>bruce    
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>I took a digital picture of the kernel boot messages, available here:
>>>>>http://www.neologic.net/ad/netbsdboot.jpg
>>>>>
>>>>>Booter's bootlog is also available here:
>>>>>http://www.neologic.net/ad/bootlog
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm looking forward to getting NetBSD working on this computer and would 
>>>>>appreciate any help.  Thanks in advance,
>>>>>
>>>>>Alan Dipert
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>-- 
>>edoneel@sdf.lonestar.org
>>SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
>>    
>>
>
>  
>