install multiple os on a mac

[Skie]

stats of each:

8493 867 mhz
8493 1g mhz dual process er
5183 733 mhz


im needing to install:


7.6.1
8.6
9.1


on at least one of them (want to install all 3). At the moment all 3 are on another mac saved on different virtual drives. How would i go about installing all 3 of these on one of the previously listed macs.

[Korietsu]

stats of each:

8493 867 mhz
8493 1g mhz dual process er
5183 733 mhz


im needing to install:


7.6.1
8.6
9.1


on at least one of them (want to install all 3). At the moment all 3 are on another mac saved on different virtual drives. How would i go about installing all 3 of these on one of the previously listed macs.

Does the mac with the drives have xsan? If so, you should be able to either remote install, or you can burn the ISO's of the OS's and just install via CD/DVD.

[Skie]

how would you go about creating new virtual drives and installing them on it (i assume you would be able to just run the install disk and when running it choose the drive you wanted to install it)

[bungiefan]

stats of each:

8493 867 mhz
8493 1g mhz dual process er
5183 733 mhz


im needing to install:


7.6.1
8.6
9.1


on at least one of them (want to install all 3). At the moment all 3 are on another mac saved on different virtual drives. How would i go about installing all 3 of these on one of the previously listed macs.

Assuming the target Mac supports all three OSes natively, you just partition the hard drive into three and install one to each partition, or just drag the System Folders to the other partitions. Then you use the Startup Disk control panel to pick which one you want to use on next boot. IIRC, Macs old enough to support System 7 and 8 can't boot from a System Folder located farther into the hard drive than 8 GB, which was a problem I ran into trying to dual boot Linux and Mac OS 9 on my Bondi iMac. It was a problem with the drive addressing of the time, and I had a 120 GB drive (since it couldn't see more than 137 GB per drive with the addressing it used).

I know with Mac OS 9 and X that System Folders are portable, and you can even just pop a hard drive into a different Mac and boot to it, but I do't know about OS 8 and OS 7 having that ability or not, as I never tried with those versions. I moved my drive from my Bondi G3 iMac to my G4 tower and could boot to OS X and OS 9 without problem.

[fussel]

I know with Mac OS 9 and X that System Folders are portable, and you can even just pop a hard drive into a different Mac and boot to it, but I do't know about OS 8 and OS 7 having that ability or not, as I never tried with those versions. I moved my drive from my Bondi G3 iMac to my G4 tower and could boot to OS X and OS 9 without problem.

Formatting an empty drive, and copying over the System Folder from another OS 9 or below install works. This won't work with OS X. However, you can clone an OS X drive using the Restore function of Disk Utility, just use the system drive as source and an empty drive as target.

Booting a mac drive on another mac is never a problem (I one put my iBook into target mode, connected it to a 2.3 GHz dual G5 via firewire and WHOA it was fast ). You can even boot an OS X 10.5 or 10.6 drive from a Mac on a PC, if your hardware meets specific requirements and you use a flash drive or a partition on another drive for the EFI emulation bootloader.