Completely Uninstall Xpostfacto????

[prof]

I made the mistake of trying to use Xpostfacto to try and install 10.3 & 10.4 onto my
Beige G3. It was an unmitigated disaster and I ended up having to wipe the OS X drive
and reinstall 10.2 to get back to running again. I know other people have successfully
done this but for whatever reason I can't get it to go and i don't want to waste any more
time trying. The only remaining problem is that when I'm in system 9 and I want to boot into OS X, the start up disk control panel freezes and locks up my computer. Zapping the
PRAM is the only thing that cures it. But if you do a lot of booting back and forth between
System 9 and OS X this is a huge PITA. The start up disk freeze is a known issues with
Xpostfacto somewhere on my System 9 disk there's something that's causing this.
I've run the installer but this still persists. Can someone tell me how to solve this situation?? I would've asked on the Xpostfacto tech board but you have to be a registered
user in order to post and since this software didn't work for me, I have no interest in
paying to register it just so i can ask a question on how to completely rid my computer
of this program. I just want my beloved start up disc control panel to work again like it
used to. How do I do this???

TIA,
prof

[Dick Moore]

It's working great for me on a Beige with a processor upgrade to 350MHz. If you strip the OS 9 extensions down to an OS 9 Base set, you shouldn't have the problem you're having now. Note also that as documented on the XPost site, some G3 Cache Control apps cause serious trouble. You also absolutely have to have OSX within the first 8GB of the boot drive -- I partitioned to 7.98Gigs since when I partitioned to exactly 8G in Drive Setup it refused to work.

I put a Rev C ROM stick in my Beige (orig. Rev A), and I had, repeat HAD, to terminate the external SCSI jack on the rear panel in order to get anything to work right. I also completely removed the internal SCSI cable since I'm not using any SCSI devices inside.

All has been very stable and smooth. Getting to this point was harder than I expected, but not as hard as some have experienced. I'm convinced that SCSI problems lie behind most of the failures.

[hwystar]

AFAIK, the XPostFacto documentation is clear about not trying to use the startup disk control panel to go from 9 to OS X. What you need to do, is start XPF while still running in 9, then select the OS X folder you wish to start up from, then select restart. At least that is how you had to do it on the older versions that I am familiar with (I haven't downloaded a new version in more than a year, probably).

That being said, if you want to remove it, have you tried running the installer again, and looking for an uninstall option? I don't recall if there is such an option, because I have never tried to uninstall it. But I would think that just searching up the files and removing them should do the job, but like I said, I haven't tried it firsthand, so don't know for sure.

It was always my experience that XPostFacto generally worked like it was advertised to, but that it required you to read and follow the instructions (quite extensive, once you include all of the online documentation) very carefully, to the letter, to be sure that you didn't have problems. I might have misunderstood from your post, but if you missed the instructions telling you in no uncertain terms not to ever use the startup disk control panel to try to switch from OS 9 to OS X, then maybe you missed some other vital recommendation in your installation attempts, and that could be the problem with your system.

I do know that typically, Beige boxes have had a mixed success rate, even when all instructions were followed, and when last I read anything about it, there was still no definite predictor, or correlation between any specific instructions and success or failure with Beige installations, it was still a crap shoot.

HTH
hwystar

[prof]

After all the time I've wasted trying t get 10.3 working in my Beige using Xpostfacto I'm no longer interested in running anything higher than 10.2.8. So I completely wiped and reinstalled 10.2.8 and it's running fine. The problem is there
is still some bastion of Xpostfacto on my System 9 drive even though
I've run the uninstaller. Larry can you help me get my start up panel to work again in 9???

TIA,
Prof

[MacMagus]

> still some bastion of Xpostfacto on my System 9 drive

XPostFacto does install some NVRAM patches that could affect your Mac in some unforeseen way, but so far as I know, except for the XPostFacto control panel there's nothing else installed under OS 9 and when you zapped PRAM you got rid of the NVRAM patches.

If you trash the XPostFacto control panel there's nothing left from it (under OS 9) to cause any problems.

Before you trash it, however, I should point out that it is a perfectly useful Startup Disk control panel in and of itself without installing any of the OS X patches and you may have better luck using XPF than you do with the OS 9 Startup Disk control panel.

BTW: What version of OS 9 are you running? I have found that the Startup Disk control panel from OS 9.1 is hit or miss at setting an OS X Startup Disk on some Macs where the control panel from 9.2.2 works very well.

[prof]

MacMagus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > still some bastion of Xpostfacto on my System
> 9 drive
>
> XPostFacto does install some NVRAM patches that
> could affect your Mac in some unforeseen way, but
> so far as I know, except for the XPostFacto
> control panel there's nothing else installed under
> OS 9 and when you zapped PRAM you got rid of the
> NVRAM patches.
>
> If you trash the XPostFacto control panel there's
> nothing left from it (under OS 9) to cause any
> problems.
>
> Before you trash it, however, I should point out
> that it is a perfectly useful Startup Disk control
> panel in and of itself without installing any of
> the OS X patches and you may have better luck
> using XPF than you do with the OS 9 Startup Disk
> control panel.
>
> BTW: What version of OS 9 are you running? I have
> found that the Startup Disk control panel from OS
> 9.1 is hit or miss at setting an OS X Startup Disk
> on some Macs where the control panel from 9.2.2
> works very well.



Like I said zapping the PRAM does fix the start up panel
freezing but only until the next time I want to switch
systems. This is maddening. I have trashed the Xpostfacto
control panel but the problem remains. I'm using 9.2.2
and have never had trouble with the start up control panel
before trying Xpostfacto.

Thanks,
Prof

[hwystar]

prof Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Like I said zapping the PRAM does fix the start up panel
> freezing but only until the next time I want to switch
> systems. This is maddening. I have trashed the Xpostfacto
> control panel but the problem remains. I'm using 9.2.2
> and have never had trouble with the start up control panel
> before trying Xpostfacto.

Were you ever able to use the startup control panel without trouble after installing OS 10 of any flavor? My understanding is that the startup disk control panel will not work after installing OS X. That is why XPostFacto has that function built in, because that is how it enables you to install and then run OS X on an unsupported machine, and be able to use it to switch from OS 9 to OS X.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think the problem is caused by having OS X installed on an unsupported machine, not by XPostFacto.


HTH
hwystar

[prof]

hwystar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Were you ever able to use the startup control
> panel without trouble after installing OS 10 of
> any flavor? My understanding is that the startup
> disk control panel will not work after installing
> OS X. That is why XPostFacto has that function
> built in, because that is how it enables you to
> install and then run OS X on an unsupported
> machine, and be able to use it to switch from OS 9
> to OS X.
>
> Maybe I am wrong, but I think the problem is
> caused by having OS X installed on an unsupported
> machine, not by XPostFacto.
>

I had aboslutely no problems switching between systems
by using the start up control panel prior to installing Xpostfacto.

[prof]

For anyone interested, I solved the problem by booting into 9 and manually deleting the invisible .xpostfacto folder on my Jaguar partition that the Xpostfacto uninstaller failed
to uninstall. That's a pretty poor excuse for an uninstaller but all's well again and I can
freely switch between OS X and System 9 using the start up control panel once again.

Thanks,
Prof

[Dick Moore]

FWIW, my Beige has always used 10.3.9 and 9.2.2.