Drew just said so *encouragingly* :>) > Yeah, sounds like you are in a predicament...
followed by various helpful suggestions, some of which I actually understand. > Here's an idea - set up a RAM disk. You have 16MB of RAM, right? > System 7.5.x should fit in about 2 - 3MB of disk space and take no > more than 10MB of RAM, so a RAM disk of about 4MB should suffice for > a minimal 7.5.x install. > > Make the RAM disk, install 7.5.x and Drive Setup. > Boot to the RAM disk. > Format your internal drive. > Copy the RAM disk system folder to the HD. > Reboot. > Install network stuff from a 2nd floppy (if it wasn't on the RAM disk). > > You could probably also boot into the RAM disk w/ all the network > stuff installed, then use LocalTalk to install OS 8 from across the > network. The only problem with this setup is that if you have a bad > crash and have to push the reset button in the back, you'll lose your > boot partition in the RAM. Why can't I boot from the 8.5 disk tools floppy (as described in previous post?) and partition, install, augment, from there? > FWIW, using a separate partition for VM storage won't speed VM up. > VM will just fragment the partition instead of your whole disk. Once > the partition is fragmented, VM will slow back down - I don't see any > advantage here (beyond not fragmenting your data partitions). It > might be a good idea not to frag up the rest of your disk too hard > (fragmentation lengthens boot time and drive access time), but > fragging up one partition instead of the whole disk won't really help. Aside from the fact that the very idea of a separate VM partition sounds too clever to ignore, if it's very small it can hardly get fragmented too badly. Or can it? And once fragged, can't it then be reformatted without going through all this nervewracking timeconsuming song and dance of redoing the whole drive? > Now, if you REALLY want to speed VM up, get an Ultra160 SCSI hardware > RAID array w/ 15000rpm disks and huge 2MB+ buffers each. But then, > if you can afford that, you should already have all the real RAM > you'd ever need... ;-) > > On the hacker side, you could clock up the system bus on the 5300 to > about 40MHz (40*3 = 120MHz CPU speed, so maybe 36-37MHz is better). > A faster bus will improve throughput. ;-) OK, now you've lost me but good, but nevermind and please *Don't explain* :>) Since I'm going to be away and using the 5300 constantly the first few weeks of Feb all of these potentially treacherous procedures had better wait till afterwards anyway. But surely there's got to be a normal standard usual way to reformat a drive and reinstall the OS on a computer without a CD drive? -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
