Installing Mac OS

Introduction

This document describes how I installed System 7.5.3 on an old Powermac 6100. It can be used as a tutorial for installing Mac OS on Macintoshes that don't have a working operating system with Stuffit Expander installed.

Network Access Disk

The first thing you need is some disk to boot from. I used the Network Access Disk distributed by Apple. It can be used to boot both 68K and PowerPC Macintoshes, and contains a minimal Finder and Chooser.

The Network Access Disk can be downloaded from Apple, but you will need Stuffit Expander to extract the disk image, and Disk Copy (or Disk Utility) to write the image to a floppy. For your convenience, I provide the Network Access Disk as a raw floppy image, which you can write to floppy using dd.

Stuffit Expander

Next, you will need Stuffit Expander. Alladin still provides a version that works with System 7, but it is only available in BinHex format, meaning that you need to decode it. This decoding is done with Stuffit Expander, but that leaves a chicken and egg problem. One way to get around it is to use my Stuffit Expander disk image to create a floppy containing the installer. Insert the floppy in your Mac, run the installer, and after that you should be good to go.