Tacit/Kelly...

[Dreambird]

I have OS9.1 on my Pismo that was originally installed from a full install OS9.1 CD... I never went the 9.0.4>9.1 downloadable upgrade route. Now I find that if I try to do a clean system install I choose the option "Perform Clean Install"... it starts up fine and goes for a time and then declares "Big System Morsels cannot be initialized. Installation will not continue." End of story... I cannot do a clean system on this machine, nor could I when I tried it on the Lombard which had OS8.6 on it. I finally just ran OS9.1 right over top of OS8.6 on that one... luckily it took OK.

What's up with that?...  
It never happened with the OS8.6 CD...

 

[bobw]

Take a look here;

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25222

and here;

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106116

[Dreambird]

Thanks for the links bobw... they do shed a little light on what might be happening, but I'm not sure if they apply to me or not...

They specify OS9.0 to OS9.0.4 in one article and the OS9.1 to OS9.2.2 downloadable upgrades in the other. Also I have no trouble installing OS9.1 from my CD on a clean HD or over another OS like I did with OS8.6 on the Lombard to upgrade it.

That all goes off w/o a hitch, it's just when I try to install a clean system folder... so that it would leave me with a previous system folder to merge with a new one.

I don't know if it makes any difference but the error I get is that Big System Morsels can't be "initialized", not a problem reading it.

No external devices attached when doing this... both machines have more RAM installed Kingston 256mb in the Pismo and Transcend 128mb in the Lombard along with the original 64mb Apple.

It seems to me the thing is hanging up on something to do with what's already installed on the HD and not giving me that clean system folder... if I'm making any sense...  

[kelly]

Sure you're making sense.

Don't know what it is.

Disk not dirty or scratched?

No Anti-Virus or Security setup running?

I once got around a problem like this by dragging the Installer to the Hard Drive.

It's an Application itself. I gave it more Memory.

[Dreambird]

Well, glad I make sense, even if in a weird sort of way!

I generally boot from the system CD to do these things, so no... there shouldn't be any AV or security programs running... CD looks fine, clean... no scratches, just the usual little fine lines that most have. In any case it doesn't seem to interfere with a complete install... just if I want only a clean system folder.

One of the articles suggests dragging the Big System Morsel from the CD to the root level of the HD... I haven't tried that yet.

There's two what look like installers on the CD "Mac OS Install" (that one has a memory one could change I suppose if it were on the HD) and another one called "Install Mac OS9.1" which appears to be only a document.

[tacit]

I had this problem once; the solution was to zap the PRAM.

This problem may indicate corrupt or unreadable information in PRAM. Zapping the PRAM rewrites this information with default values. In particular, it seems that this error may occur if the information regarding the status of AppleTalk can't be determined fromthe PRAM by the installer.

[Dreambird]

Thank-you... Tacit!  

I zapped the PRAM and installed a clean system folder, no problem...