HIGHEST WARNING !!! OS X 10.2.6 CORRUPTS ALL HARDDISKS UNDER OS9

[Kay Belik <kay@danda.nl>]

OSX.2.6 sets os9 deadly privileges on every harddisk and every
harddiskvolume ever connected to an osx 10.2.6 system that cannot be
removed.

What happens is the harddisk sectors like
- the driver descriptor index,
- the partition index,
- the volume header block, and
- the alternative header block,
- the catalog B-tree
are all set to lock !

So they can not be overwritten or altered by anything else then the osx
admin system. So even when you take out the harddrive format it under
DOS, form it into an NTFS volume will not take these permissions away
!!! and they are really nasty to destinguish.

The result however is that when the system is also being used under os-9
this system will eventually fail completely within a timespan of weeks
or months. Depending of the intensity of the use. You will see
disapearing disks, you mightlose valuable data and probeably to avoid
further problems you will stop using OS9 (Classic).

Steve Jobs if you're out there this is a brilliant plan to lose all the
os9 users. If it's not your fault get it together and make shure this
shit never happens again because it is absolutely Apple unworthy !!!

However i found a painfull elaborate way of desinfecting your systems.

no1. make shure you
- Backup all the data you can.
- 2 harddrives in your computer.
- 1st harddrive (Master) 2nd drive (Slave) [NO Cable Select Setting]
- Diskwarrior 2.1 under os9.x
- Norton 5 or 6 on your os9 disk. (Do not use to make changes!!!)
- A booteable os9.x cd-rom systemdisk
- A lot of time - 3 hours minimum.
- Disks are not bigger then 120Gb!!!

no2.
- Startup under os9.x or if nothing starts from the booteable system
cd-rom.
- If you see the osx volume then erase/format the volume Erase the disk
if you can. You also can use the "Drive Setup" Utility.
(If your disk is already in big trouble and you cannot see your disk try
shutting down the machine for several hours, change the dipswitches from
'cable setting' to 'master' and 'slave' until the drives can be mounted
and seen on the desktop) or seen under the 'Drive Setup' Utility from
your Utility's folder

By formatting the os-x 10.2.6 volume you enable that the permissions set
on your harddrives can be undone.

no3.
To get rid of all the unwanted osx permissions you must restart with
extensions off (press Shift at startup).
Now you have to proces volume by volume and harddrive by harddrive with
Diskwarrior 2.1 (Diskwarrior 3.1 will not work since it works under osx
10.2.6)This utility will not proces the startupdisk and the disk it has
started from. This is why you need 2 diskdrives.

At the end you can check the result with Norton 6 or Norton 5. BUT
If Norton finds serious problems make shure not to correct them with
Norton !!! Because Norton is not able to undo the permissions set by osx
10.2.6 and will result in total diskloss. In fact it is adviseable to
reformat all drives because otherwise it will be hard to distinguish
real problems from the problems caused by the permissions from osx. This
all means that you are about to copy a lot of data from one to another
drive. The permisions will not be transfered by copying data under os9.

no4.
When you need to work with osx there are two alternatives:
- Your machine has to work with osx 10.2.6. only. You have to abandon
the os9 boot and be verry carefull what external drives come in contact
with this system. OR
- You have to work with version 10.2.2 This one will only corrupt the
permissions on the volume it is put on. Other volumes will stay intact.
They still can be treated with Disc Warrior and Norton 5 or 6.

It is a shame that software like Final Cut 4 need OSx 10.2.6 to work and
will not colaborate succesfull with os9 applications.

NOT SOLVED:
However there is no remedy for Diskdrives bigger then 120Gb !!!
This is a real problem for owners of Lacieetc Firewire disks because all
these drives are corrupted by one contact with a os-x 10.2.6 system.
Anyone who has the method to resolve their permissions problem is
welcome to let us know.


Finally:
To be able to make this article these facts have been encountered on
more then 8 different machines. And the procedure to get rid of the
problem was repeated on every machine with the same succes. Most
machines are in the range of G4-400 - G4-1250DP.
The drives where 40Gb- 120Gb IBM's, 80-200Gb WD Caviar's and 1 120Gb
Maxtor.
The utility that Apple introduced to prevent disappearing Harddisks
under osx "Hard Drive Update 1" did not have any effect on any of these
drives.
The OSX 10.2.6 install was done by several 10.2.x installers with
upgrades to 10.2.6 via the web.
and a brandnew OSX 10.2.6 dvd standalone installer.
All with the same devious results.

Good Luck with this information.


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