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

[Dale Bengston]

This is what I recently had to do in order to wipe an Intel mini of  
OS X Server and put plain OS X on it. The OS X installer would sit  
and spin forever on initialize. I was able to use the OS X install  
DVD's copy of Disk Utility to initialize the drive first. It would  
not initialize as part of the OS installation.

My next plan of attack was to try target disk mode, but I didn't have  
to go that far.

Dale


On May 22, 2007, at 2:54 PM, John May wrote:

> Can't you just boot from the install disc and run Disk Utility from  
> there to format the drive?
>
> 	- John
>
>
>> 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
>
> -- 
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> John May : President                 <http://www.pointinspace.com/>
> Point In Space Internet Solutions             jmay at pointinspace.com
>
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