[FX.php List] [OFF-TOPIC] A bug discovery in OS X Server and OS X 10.4 installers

[Bob Patin]

Recently, in the process of setting up my new web server, I  
discovered a bug in OS X Server and OS X's installers that I was able  
to reproduce:

If you do an install of OS X Server and it doesn't completely install  
properly, or if you wanted to reinstall OS X Server for some reason,  
you would normally put the install DVD into the machine and  
reinstall. The installer tells you that you have to initialize the  
drive, so you click that button and proceed.

In my testing, I discovered that OS X Server would hang up forever at  
the beginning of the install, UNLESS the drive was already  
initialized. I went through hours of grief over this; I tried  
installing OS X (not Server), again checking the box to init the  
drive, but it too hung up. I suspect it has something to do with OS X  
Server being on the machine; I didn't test to see if I could  
overwrite OS X on a previously-installed disk that had OS X on it.

When I realized that the problem was that the drive had a previous  
version of OS X Server on it, I started thinking of how I might  
initialize the drive:

a) put a 2nd drive into the machine, install a system on it
b) get a new drive

But here's the solution: I mounted the drive to my laptop using  
Firewire target disk mode; I then was able to initialize the drive.  
Once I did that, I was able to put OS X Server on without any trouble.

Thought I'd share it in case someone else stumbles into this same  
problem...

Bob Patin
Longterm Solutions
bob at longtermsolutions.com
615-333-6858
http://www.longtermsolutions.com

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