[G4] FireWire CDRW/DVDRW

[CJ Scaminaci]

On the 7200 It is quite tricky. On my 9500 there processor is on a 
daughter card to begin with so if you put a new one in it is forced to 
use it. With the 7200 it has the option of using two different 
processors the on board, or the PCI one. XPostFacto forces it to use 
the upgrade card. But when it forces it, it doesn't turn on the 
Backside Cache. This you have to do with another one of the developers 
applications. (Can't recall the name) But basically that turns on the 
backside cache in MacOSX. The XPostFacto application itself runs in 
MacOS 9 only. Although the new version for Panther will run under 
MacOSX as well.  Heres a breakdown of how it works:

On Initial Install:
1.You select a target volume for the install.
2.Insert the MacOSX CD of your choice.
3.Set XPostFacto to target the volume you wish to install on and the CD 
to install from.
4.Hit the restart button on XPostFacto. Once this is done XPostFacto 
installs special drivers on the target volume allowing it to install 
OSX. It also writes into the NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM, this is where 
such data as which volume to boot from are stored) this tells the 
computer to boot from the MacOSX CD and override the machine ID 
settings telling the installer that the machine is old.

Then On Regular Boot:
After the install is complete you restart to MacOS 9 for one last time. 
When in 9:
1.Open XPostFacto and select you MacOSX volume for boot. When you hit 
restart this time it installs a special version of the kernel and other 
files allowing the machine to boot X regularly.
2.MacOSX boots up and viola! you have beaten Apple's old machine 
lockout. Note that you only have to boot into 9 once to reset the NVRAM 
for your MacOSX volume. After this it will always boot into X unless 
you set the boot volume to 9 in the system preferences. But every time 
you boot into 9, to get back to X you have to use XPostFacto and not 
Apple's startup disk.

XPostFacto is really great and it's freeware! Although to get support 
for it you should pay the 10$ and join the forum the developer runs.You 
might want to check it out. 
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

CJ



> How do the drivers work on that sucker? Does Xpostfacto support it?
> It sounds like it would be one of those systems you wouldn't screw with
> once you got it configured. I have always been leary about those.
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