First of all, please accept my apologies for the previous multiple threads. I hope this becomes the last of the saga, in the hope of getting the necessary help to resolve multiple issues:

1. System being used: Mac Mini G41.5GHZ, 1 GB RAM, 80GB HDD, Leopard 10.5.8
2. First installed MOS3.0 on June 18. Received MOS key on June 20. Installation successful. Installed morphos.key in System:Devs
3. Encountered minor issues using system, due to lack of knowledge. Received assistance @ morphozone.
4. Installed apps: Grunch, TVPaint, Aminet Radio and 3 Games (Neverball, Foobilliard and Hurrican)
5. Never mixed things up in folders (especially system folders)- I don't know how to that any ways.
6. Attempted to upgrade to 3.1 using "Update Installation" option. Did not work. System was looking for USB drive from wher I first copied morphos/key from.
7. Several attempts failed.
8. Got advice to install from burnt CD with 3.1.
9. 1st attempt failed due to same issue as point 6 above
10. After 3rd attempt managed to installed 3.1 using a complete fresh installation on July 10. Left system on and to go in sleeping mode.
11. System working, re-installed apps in point 4 above on Wed, Jul 10.
12. Powered computer off night of Wed, Jul 10.
13. Computer was turned on again on morning Thu, Jul 11. OWB gave start up messages, so it won't work
14. Re-installed from scratch. Worked fine during the day. Powerd off and turned back on Friday, Jul 13. Same problems again as in point 13 above.
15. Same occurrences on Sat, Jul 14. First re-installation of the day didn't work (PowerDsl libary was installed but found by games I was trying to reload. Re-installed again from scratch to delete all previous data and avoid overwrites (I always did between installations)
System is now working again and I've only installed Grunch and Neverball to get PowerDsl embedded in game. Game plays.

16. I WON'T POWER OFF UNTIL I RECEIVE HELP FROM A GOOD SAMARITAN. I know if I did, I will get have the same problem over and over again. I'M TIRED AND I NEED HELP.

Thank you for your patience and pls understand that I'm not a power AmigaDOS user. My experience is only with PC's for 25 years. Last time I owned an Amiga was 20 years ago.

P.S. I will copy and send this thread to support@morphos-team.net too

May I suggest in order to have a more stable system, to go backto 3.0?
I have a similair system, and not interested in
the release as of yet, mainly due to iso burning issues, but whatever.
I can live with 3.0 for now. most here are novices, so your fruststation is understandable.
Not sure why you are plagued with these issues though

xyphoid,
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My bad I forgot to mention that today, Sat., Jul 14, I did try a fresh installation of 3.0 hoping to get the solid performance I got before, but unfortunately it didn't happen. After reinstalling 3.0 I had exactly the same issues as with 3.1.

IMHO, 3.1 screwed everything up and it can't be undo, or at least I don't know how to undo this mess.

I even tried restoring Mac OS X and start with 3.0 just like I did originally, but that didn't work either because from some reason I don't understand, it aborts installation when reaching 20%.

IT IS A MESS and all I did, was to follow the instructions that I was given to upgrade to the letter, BECAUSE I ASKED BEFORE INSTALLING ANYTHING.

WeiXing3D,
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If you have issues installing an entirely different operating system, you are likely dealing with a hardware problem.

Based on your description, I would guess that your harddisk might be failing. The reason why MorphOS 3.0 and 3.1 could be installed but MacOS could not, might very well be that MacOS is much bigger so more data has to be copied for the installation to succeed.

While you attempt to install MacOS X, does the installation always stop at exactly the same point (i.e. 20%)?

ASiegel,
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I only try to restore once. The h/w is fine since it even recognizes all peripherals without aby problem. Even the air card (wi fi) in the Mac side was coming up. Another example is, that everything is working fine now, but I'm sure that is only until I power off and turn it on again.

I never had any issues with 3.0; everything worked as it was supposed to work. I wouldn't think that's a coincidence.

Why is it always easier to put the blame somewhere else? I've been working in the HW/SW industry of high accuracy 3D measurement technology, and I have seen quite a few software updates being released and causing havoc.

I still hope someone could tell me how to fix this mess, rather than asking me to go and spend another US$150 bucks in a new Max Mini, just to see if it works. I prefer to think that there must be a way to rung a diagnostic and see what iw rong or missing in the registries, for example.

WeiXing3D,

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Why do people tend to reject answers based merely on the fact that, if true, it might cost them money?


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Once you remove a specific operating system entirely (by formatting the harddisk) and try to install a completely different one, the problem must be elsewhere as there is no probable causal link left between the two.

Based on your own description, you had not done much with MorphOS 3.0 which explains why you did not notice any serious issues before. The fact that you had to install PowerSDL a second time before it worked, could also be seen as an indication that your harddisk is failing.


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I certainly did not ask you to do so. If your harddisk is, in fact, failing, you just need to replace it which should cost substantially less than $150.

Before buying any new hardware, you should try to boot the Mac OS installer again and use the Disk Utility´s "disk verify" feature. (This feature is limited but should be a starting point.)

Well IF OSX fails too it's either a big coincedence or some fault that is not in the SW (*doh*)

The HD is the obvious culprit here so replacing it with another one (not so hard and not so expensive) might be a 1st start.
For me it sounds as it has probs working correct while still r cool, failing bearings could do that.

If it's still the orginal 7 year old HD I would even say replacing is essential regardless of any problems you might have.


Edit:
I have a PowerBook 5.8 here that (seemed ?) worked just fine with the OSX installed but when I tried to partion the drive with MorphOS (a 3.0 beta but that turned out not to be the issue) I had all sort of weird probs.
Depending on used filesystem I would either fail at creating or formating those partition (I could create/format FAT just fine, but doubt that it would have been a good idea to put data there).
Replacing it with another HD (same model left over from a different PB) magicly cured all symptoms....

[ Edited by Kronos 15.07.2012 - 08:05 ]

My MDD mac does some hard crashes now, after installing programs, it now acts funny. Going to try a new Hard drive to see if it clears up things.

Also, had a bad memory module that would make my mac not even load up the install picture of MOS, just some red error text showed up.

At first, I haven't read all your comments word by word, but I got the impression that you misunderstood the update part of MorphOS. Update option in IWizard doesn't download anything new from the internet, it just updates selected system from that media it was started. If you ran IWizard from 3.0 CD then it tries to update system to 3.0. Updating from 3.0 to 3.0 shouldn't cause any problems but everything stays as same version....

And if you're not 100% sure what you're doing, you should always boot from the new installation CD to run the update. The booting should be done with C-key pressed on boot or by selecting CD on alt-menu on Macs. If you just boot without doing any action while CD is inserted, older boot.img is loaded from the HD even while system still might boot otherwise from the CD.

Installing 3.1 shouldn't do anything you can't revert back to 3.0 or doing fresh installs of whatever OS. If you do "New Install" on IWizard and let it do automatic partitioning, everything is done from scratch.

I recommend that you don't have any USB mass storage device connected when you're running installation. Some seem to give problems on that. It's bit weird if it still asks that USB drive even if it's not connected. I'm not sure if IWizard saves any that kind of data for later use... I wouldn't think it do.

Maybe you should check your S:user-startup if there's any assign which points to your USB drive and that would mess things up? Have you had it connected while installing something, if it's accidently installed to USB instead of HD? Anyway all these are gone for sure if you make the fresh new installation with automatic partitioning and don't have that USB drive connected when doing it.

Anyway I've had two Mac minis (1.42 and 1.5) since MorphOS 2.4 and never had any problems with updating the existing system. There really shouldn't be this kinds of problems... I'd try to check that HD as suggested too. Did that Mac diagnostic software which comes with the OSX check the HD too? At least it would check all the other components...

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Burn a 3.1 CD, boot from it using the alt-key menu and go the new Installation path, erasing current contents of the hard drive entirely.

jacadcaps,
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I've never been a Mac user, could you please tell me how to do the "alt-key menu" startup. I'd like to cpmplete erase and repartition my HDD.

Ermmm.....

When powering up the Mini you press "c" this should start the Mini from the inserted CD.

Sometimes that will fail and you go an alterante route:

Press "alt" (as in the key labeled "alt" ...) and after some time some icons will appear on your screen
One will be an HD-symbol with a small butterfly, that your MorphOS install on the HD
There might be more HD-symbols depending on other OSes installed on the HD
There will also be an CD-symbol which is the inserted CD
Wait till you can actually select something (may take some time as OF is searching for Netboot-devices)
Select the CD-symbol
Hit the right-pointing arrow
MorphOS should now start from CD

Normally I don't have any problems in accessing the installation by pressing and holding "c" while booting. I go directly to the installation screen (the first one being the select language).

Then I get to screen showing my drives (MyMorphOS, Work, System, RAM and the BootCD), plus the window with the MorphOS installation screen (New Install, Update Installation and Explore CD).

What I want is to be able to start a new installation by completely erasing my HDD and start with a blank canvas. Is this possible? How?

You go down the "new install" route click yozrself through some settings (locale, screen-res,time&date,keyboard,mouse,network) till you get to "drives" where you select to partition the drive with MorphOS-defaults (might be named different to lazy to set language to english here).

Afterwards all on your HD will be gone.

Kronos,
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That's exactly what I've been doing all along.

@WeiXing3D

Have you tried the Apple Hardware Test by now? It's also called "AHT" and should be located somewhere like on the first OSX install disc shiped with your Mac mini.
On the other hand, I have no idea if this tests the hard disc or not...

Give the harddisk check a try. The fact that the OS X installations fails is a very strong indicator the hardware is faulty. Only contraindication to a faulty hdd is that your machine is stable once booted (When I had a broken hdd in my Peg a few years ago, the IDE froze just randomly after a while). Anyway, if you can get another 2.5" harddisk, swap in into your mini and try whether the problems are disappeard.
Alternatively you may also try to build a CDR with the key included and boot from that and check whether the system runs stable or not.

And before you say its easy to blame the hardware: One of the advantages of MorphOS supporting Apple kit is that configurations are not random. My mini runs pretty fine with MorphOS as many others do. It's pretty unlikely a software fails on another identical machine that strong. A faulty hdd is the most probable explanation. On www.ifixit.com you'll get a description how to open the mini. It's not difficult and should be done once in a while anyway for cleaning purposes. An exchange hdd is not a huge investment, for testing even some used (but proven) disk may be sufficient.

Where are you located - maybe another MorphOS user is nearby to you who can assist you?

I am very sure all issues can get sorted out.

> Where are you located

"From: Bellingham, WA"

Following the advice and help of a fellow forum member, I've been trying to format my two partitions: Work and System to start a fresh installation. It's been 3 days since I started the "formatting and verification" option with the partition Work and it's still going. Even though I have not yet received any error messages, I'v been advised that there might be something wrong with the HDD, since it should not take this long. So I ordered a replacement HDD on line which should arrive by the end of next week.

I'll bring my Mac MINI to an authorized shop to do the replacement for me, since I understand it's a bit "tricky."

Is there any preparation needed with the HDD, like re-installing Mac's OS X or anything else, before bringing my Mini home and reinstalling MOS?

Do I need the store to perform some quick or full formatting first?

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IMHO this is the final "proof" that your very strange problems are caused by a borked HDD.

Good news! Kind of... (At least you know the problem now! )

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If you want to try it yourself, here is a detailed (with pictures) instruction on how to do it:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-Mac-mini-PowerPC-Hard-Drive/268/1

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Take your computer home and do it yourself!

Do you want Mac OS on it? Or MorphOS? Or both?

You don't need Mac OS to install and use MorphOS (MorphOS boots entirely from CD and will happily remove any Mac OS partitions during install).

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Doesn't really matter, especially not on a new HDD (the full formatting overwrites all the sectors of the HDD (like erases all the pages in a book) and also scans for bad sectors (broken/missing pages in the book), while a quick formatting simply erases the *index* in the beginning of the book, and never examines the integrity of the sectors (the pages in the book), which is a process already performed at the HDD factory anyway), so IMHO a quick will be fine. But the store will know this.

Or even better, let Mac OS or MorphOS do the formatting during the install process instead of giving "the store" another excuse to spice up your invoice by adding unnecessary "work time".

I don't want Mac OS in my Mini. I bought it to be just a MOS machine.

I won't ask the repair shop to format the HDD, just to replace the unit.

So could someone give me step by step instructions to install MOS after the HDD is physically replaced?

Wouldn't it be exactly the same way you have always been doing it? Throw in the CD, boot off it, Go through the installer, then have it take over the entire HDD since it wont have Mac OS X.

Just as a curiosity: Is it normal (I guess not, but any ways) that it took me exactly 1 week, uninterruptedly, to format and verify one of 2 partitions in my Mac Mini?

Funny thing is that at the end of the formatting and verification, and after one week, I got a message saying: Successfully finished formatting and verifying.

In any case, I will be receiving a new 80GB HDD tomorrow, I hope to have installed during the weekend. I will report how it goes my 3.1 installation when I'm done.

Toast the HDD and get you a new one. Also, I don't know if its likely, but maybe a ram module has gone bad? My MDD had one and it prevented me from installing or doing much, would also freeze MOS. Either way, good luck!

I just got my Mac Mini back with a replaced HDD. I also got my RAM modiule checked and I was told that it was OK too.

I'm sending this post from my new 3.1 installation and so far so good. Other than 1 error message in the installation of Grunch V1.37. The mssg is FATAL 'Unable to find htpp://pollucks.freeshel.org/download/Pollucks_MorphOS.db'! The same line is repeated twice in the script.

In any case, I used Grunch to install a couple of simple games (Foobillard and Neverbal)) and the both came up OK; they work fine.

This is all I have done so far, besides copying my moprhoskey inside System:Devs

Any comments?