Ivan J. Eberle
8-Dec-2010, 11:43
Couple of days ago I fired up my old G4-chipped B&W desktop that I've been nursing along for years for it's old scanner support. Got an Epson 4990 working nicely with it, if a bit slowly. Then I casually and very stoopidly used Software Update and tried to install a late security patch while I was on the telephone with my sweetie.
Once upon a time, I knowed better. The very last iterations of a software version or security patches too often mysteriously break things. If I believed in conspiracies, it might look like Apple is forever trying to get folks to upgrade their hardware by borking their HDD's... which is what happened in this case. The gray apple logo just sat there spinning on reboot, going nowhere.
With another copy of OSX on another disk in the machine, I opened Finder and Disk Utility to confirm that the disk and the disk image were still there. Repaired permissions... repaired the disk disk itself. Still nothing.
Only after I copied all the OSX system and software resources to yet another drive did I do an archive and restore from the original Panther OS 10.3.2 disks. Then I downloaded the Combined 10.3.9 Upgrade as a file and installed it from the file (not Software Update.) Got Photoshop CS2 back without having to reinstall it only because I'd saved the Application Support file, which the Previous Systems finder folder on the Apple archiving process did NOT save. Dragged it over, found my profile folder for my monitor and repaired Disk Permissions once again. Voila! PS CS2 is back to where I was prior to puzzling-it-all-out.
(Borking PS CS2 was the many hour's long thrash I dreaded most, precisely the prospect not being able to get it back without calling Bangalore and being on hold for 2 hours for a new key code for my registered upgraded CS2 package).
The old maxim, "If it ain't broke too bad, don't fix it" applies to these old legacy boxes we keep on life-support for the scanner drivers (and SCSI-II) they support.
Once upon a time, I knowed better. The very last iterations of a software version or security patches too often mysteriously break things. If I believed in conspiracies, it might look like Apple is forever trying to get folks to upgrade their hardware by borking their HDD's... which is what happened in this case. The gray apple logo just sat there spinning on reboot, going nowhere.
With another copy of OSX on another disk in the machine, I opened Finder and Disk Utility to confirm that the disk and the disk image were still there. Repaired permissions... repaired the disk disk itself. Still nothing.
Only after I copied all the OSX system and software resources to yet another drive did I do an archive and restore from the original Panther OS 10.3.2 disks. Then I downloaded the Combined 10.3.9 Upgrade as a file and installed it from the file (not Software Update.) Got Photoshop CS2 back without having to reinstall it only because I'd saved the Application Support file, which the Previous Systems finder folder on the Apple archiving process did NOT save. Dragged it over, found my profile folder for my monitor and repaired Disk Permissions once again. Voila! PS CS2 is back to where I was prior to puzzling-it-all-out.
(Borking PS CS2 was the many hour's long thrash I dreaded most, precisely the prospect not being able to get it back without calling Bangalore and being on hold for 2 hours for a new key code for my registered upgraded CS2 package).
The old maxim, "If it ain't broke too bad, don't fix it" applies to these old legacy boxes we keep on life-support for the scanner drivers (and SCSI-II) they support.