[P1] Helper Disk...

[George Slusher]

>I have seen techs at Apple dealers use a disk they made up of a bunch 
>of drive fixers like Norton, DiskWarrior, etc.  I'm wondering if I can 
>do the same thing and not have to take several disks when I travel?  I 
>take about 5 or 6 with me now and wonder since I own them (yes, they 
>are registered) if there's any reason I can't do this.  Any help with 
>how to do this?

You can make a bootable CD with a minimal OS and then install all the 
programs you want. Sounds straight-forward, but it can be more 
complicated than that. There are instructions in the manual for Toast 5 
Titanium, if you read it thoroughly. 

One way to do this (not the only way, but it works), assuming that you 
have only one HD: 

- Create a temporary partition with Toast (it's really a single file that 
can be mounted, rather like a disk image.

- Mount and open the temporary partition and install a minimal system. 
One way to do this is to put in your OS 9 Install disk and drag the 
system folder from there to the temporary partition. You could also drag 
the system folder from Norton SystemWorks, TechTool Pro (be sure to get 
the right one!), etc. That System Folder will be about 50-70 MB. You 
could also do this on a Zip drive, but that could create a problem with 
the CD writing, as Zips are pretty slow.

The reason for the temporary partition is that you don't want to have two 
"blessed" (i.e., has a Finder) OS 9 System Folders on your HD and your 
full System Folder is probably too big and has more than you need. 

- Install the utilities you want on this disk. Again, a good way to do 
this is to drag the application folder from the SystemWorks, TechTool 
Pro, etc. CD. Just be sure that you get everything. The first time I did 
this, I missed a file in Norton SystemWorks. You could, of course, use 
the installer to install the utility, but it MIGHT put stuff in your 
startup system folder, rather than in the temporary partition's system 
folder. (FWIW, you can't startup from the temporary partition.) 

- Add any other stuff you really need--extensions, control panels, 
applications, etc. 

- In Toast, click on "Other" and hold to choose "Mac Volume." Then select 
the temporary partition you made and click on "On the fly optimization" 
and "make bootable." Then record, writing the disk (probably not a 
session--I don't know if a multisession disk can boot). 

One caveat: if you make an alias in the temporary partition, it won't 
work--it will look for the file in the temporary partition. There must be 
some way to fix this, as lots of commercial CDs have aliases, but I don't 
know how to do it.  

I also moved the preferences for SystemWorks, etc. from my HD System 
Folder to the System Folder on the temporary partition. Everything seemed 
to work, though SystemWorks kept asking for me to insert the disk with 
the same name, i.e., the temporary partition. I just clicked on "Cancel" 
and it worked fine.

George Slusher/Eugene, OR
gslusher at rio.com