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No Room to Update to 10.1.4

Dan Knight - 2002.04.18

I tried to update Mac OS X to version 10.1.4 last night - and ran into the same problem I had with one of the earlier updates.

The problem.

Apple claims that you can run Mac OS X on a 1.5 GB partition.
The updaters requires 300 MB of free space.
If you have a small OS X partition, you may not have 300 MB available.
Mac OS X will generate an error report if you don't have 300 MB for it to use.
Mac OS X won't tell you how much free space your partition has.

When I got my TiBook over a year ago, I created a 2 GB partition to hold a spare copy of OS 9 plus utilities - and OS X when I would get around to it. I pretty much had to clear everything off that partition when I installed OS X, but I didn't want to put it on my main (8 GB) partition until I was sure everything worked and I was ready to adopt OS X.

That 2 GB partition has 227 MB of free space - after moving several X apps to my main partition. I don't think I should have to move Mail and Internet Explorer, apps that came with OS X, to another partition just so I can install a software update.

Apple needs to address this. Maybe they can change things so the updater puts the temporary files on another partition if there's insufficient space on the current partition - with the user's permission, of course. Maybe they can rewrite the updater to actually tell the user how much more space it needs. Maybe they can teach OS X to report how much free space exists on a drive.

If any of these are part of X, I've never heard of it, but I somehow can't imagine that X is unable to know and display the amount of free space on a drive.

With the classic Mac OS, I could simply copy everything to a larger partition, boot from it, and be on my way (well, a few prefs might need to be tweaked). But I don't know if you can do that under OS X.

To top it off, my main partition only has 1.45 GB free and my X Drive has 1.77 GB on it. I guess I could move some files to the OS X partition - but that's nearly full, which is the cause of all this trouble.

The alternative is to move everything to an external FireWire drive, repartition my 10 GB hard drive into 7.5 and 2.5 GB pieces, put everything back, and hope OS X survives being moved around like that. Either that or make a larger main partition and combine OS 9 and X on the same partition. I don't want to buy a larger hard drive, nor do I see any reason to do so. 10 GB is adequate for my needs; I just have the wrong partition setup at present.

I'm researching on the Web. Is it possible to simply copy OS X to another drive and boot from it? How easy or difficult is it to combine an OS X partition and an OS 9 partition? If I have both on one partition, will Retrospect Client and other utilities stop working?

As always, Mac OS X is a learning experience.

Recent 10 Forward

Three glitches in Safari 1.0, 07.07. Safari developer Dave Hyatt has asked for a Top 10 list of Safari problems. Try as I might, I can only come up with three.
Troubleshooting iChat AV for voice and video chat, 06.24. Can't get iChat AV to work for audio or video chat? Here's how to get past your firewall.
Good news and bad news about the Jaguar update and other thoughts on OS X, 04.01. Turning the Jaguar upgrade into a full installer, OS 9 vs. X, pros and cons of OS X applications, thoughts on the dock, and more.
Safari update, Mac OS X 10.2.4, a neat haxie, and how Mail can better fight spam, 02.14. Safari mostly improved but adds a glitch, 10.2.4 seems just fine, a better CPU monitor, and ways Apple can leverage Mail to better fight spam.
More in the 10 Forward index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard

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