Yesterday I converted the internal IDE hard drives on my PowerBase and PowerBook 3400 to the new HFS+ or Extended Format. I followed the simple 1-2-3 steps outlined yesterday except that I booted off the DiskTools disk to format the internal IDE drives. After running Drive Setup 1.4 on my PowerBook, I discovered that the internal drive was still in HFS format and not HFS+. So I tried "Erase Disk" from the attached backup hard drive, selecting Extended Format, but I got a dialog box saying that items were still in use on the already re-initialized internal drive. I reloaded all the software back on my internal drive from the external backup and looked for some application running--nothing was. I tried "Erase Disk" again and it said that Virtual Memory was on--bingo! Turning off Virtual Memory on the internal IDE drive that I was trying to reformat did the trick. I had the identical experience with the internal IDE drive in my PowerBase using "Erase Disk" or Drive Setup 1.4. Virtual Memory had to be turned off and the computer rebooted before I could format it in HFS+. I do not know if the problem resulted from the drives being IDE drives and my normal startup disks or just being IDE drives. I did not have this problem with the internal startup disk, a 1 GB Conner SCSI drive, in my 8500 but I do not remember if VM was on or not. Here's what happened to the storage numbers on the internal IDE disks with:
IDE Hard Drive Free Space (MB)
| Hard Drive |
Mac OS 8.1 HFS |
Mac OS 8.1 HFS+ |
| 1.3 GB IBM IDE |
458.1 |
611.8 |
| 1.2 GB Seagate IDE |
246.8 |
337.9 |
HFS+ is still worth it to me in recovered disk space. However, if you install HFS+ be sure to read the ReadMe file carefully, turn Virtual Memory off for the drive and reboot, make a Disk Tools diskette first and don't try the internal drive on a Mac with a 68040 CPU.
Today's reports of CompUSA/Apple stores under construction include: Buckhead (Atlanta), GA (Dan Harrell and Walter Czachowski); Amherst (Buffalo), NY (Dave Schaubert); and Raleigh, NC (Phil Shepard). Thanks for keeping up the reports to me so that the CompUSA Watch Page! is complete and up to date.
From Matt Linton,
"Today (1/30) at MacOS Daily I have posted my impressions of the Kensington Orbit Trackball, Turbo Mouse and MacAlly 2 Button mouse."
MacWEEK reviewed a late beta of
Macromedia's Freehand v8 and concludes that it beats its chief competitor Adobe Illustrator by a large margin.
A MacWEEK editorial criticizes Java as not yet ready for prime time. However, I don't seem to have the crash problems with my java-enabled Netscape or Internet Explorer that lead to this opinion.
NEWS.COM has a good treatise on the internet domain name issue that the government is leaning toward privatizing--are these really Democrats?
NEWS.COM updated the Microsoft trial from briefs that were filed Friday. MS is still trying to get Professor Lawrence Lessig removed as a "Special Master" who will report on the Internet Explorer tying issue to Judge Jackson by the end of May.