Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Low End Mac's Online Tech Journal

Mac OS 8.5 issues on Umax SuperMac

Dan Knight

There are plenty of sites offering installation and troubleshooting advice for Mac OS 8.5 - at least for the Power Mac user. Since neither Apple Computer nor UMAX Corporation provides any support for Mac OS 8.5 on SuperMacs, this page exists to cover problems specifically noted by users of the UMAX SuperMac series of Macintosh compatible computers.

Hard drive crashes and data loss

FWB has not endorsed Hard Disk Toolkit 2.0.6 for Mac OS 8.1, let alone 8.5, preferring that the user buy 2.5.3 or later, which is certified by FWB for Mac OS 8.5. However, 2.0.6 does appear to work with 8.1 - it's working just fine on my J700 with a Quantum Fireball 2.1GB drive. At least one SuperMacs subscriber reports successfully using HDT 2.0.6 on the Fireball with Mac OS 8.5.

Of course, anyone with a C500 or C600 should simply use Drive Setup 1.6 and ignore Hard Disk Toolkit for their IDE drives.

With all the changes in 8.5, it may be wisest to use a driver specifically designed for it, so either HDT 2.5.3 or Drive Setup 1.6 are worth considering, especially since recent versions of Drive Setup seem to be compatible with just about any SCSI drive made.

Since Drive Setup won't run a driver update on top of a non-Apple driver, however, the only way to get the 1.6 driver on a drive would be to reformat the disk with Drive Setup, then install Mac OS 8.5 on that disk and allow it to update the Apple hard disk drivers during the installation process.

One subscriber notes,

"That's the avenue I'm personally going to take. A low-level format on a second hard drive, followed by a full installation of 8.5, leaving the drive on which 8.1 resides completely untouched. Anyone who simply runs the 8.5 installer on their drive and doesn't update the driver with one known to be good with 8.5 - be it from Apple or some update from FWB - is, in my opinion, taking a serious risk."

MacInTouch has a page with one user's theory that the problem stems from non-Mac OS partitions.

Twin Turbo problems

The J700 and S900 models use an IX Micro Twin Turbo video card. Twin Turbo software through version 4.0.5 is not fully compatible with Mac OS 8.5. One SuperMacs subscriber reports losing resolution settings and needing to reinstall the software frequently.

You can download the latest version of the driver (4.0.6 as I write this) from IX Micro at <http://www.ixmicro.com/1index_wnew.htm>. Since I don't yet have Mac OS 8.5, I can't determine whether it resolves the problems that have been noted. LEM

Recent Online Tech Journal Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2010 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.