My Mini's optical drive appears to be flaky and I am unable to follow the official 2.5 update installation instructions. I have tried to think of other ways to perform the update with an external CD/DVD drive connected via USB, or a USB memory stick.

I can't remember how the Open Firmware is accessed on the Mini to use commands to try to redirect access to the external USB CD/DVD drive to run the update, is that possible?

The strange thing about my internal CD/DVD drives behavior is that when I try to boot from the CD using the "C" key during booting, I always get a boot into MacOSX. When I try holding down the Alt key to get to the boot menu screen, I can only see the two hard drive partitions for MorphOS and MacOSX and no option to boot from the CD/DVD drive. If I then choose the MorphOS boot partition and hold down the "C" key during booting MorphOS, I get a boot from the 2.4 boot.img and then the CD's MorphOS2.5 install program, which of course fails because the boot.img is too old.

Last question: Is the CD/DVD drive in the MacMini the same as the drives used in Mac laptops like the PowerBook? I have a spare SuperDrive pulled from a dead PowerBook I could try to replace my Mini's drive with if they are the same, but if I am going to open it up to do that I want to order new RAM to upgrade my Mini to 1gb.

Edit: One more thought, can I manually replace the boot.img file on my hard drive boot partition with the 2.5 file on the MorphOSBoot2.5.iso CD so I can then use the method above holding down the Alt key, choosing the MorphOS partition and then holding down the "C" key during boot to begin the installation program?

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/7/29 15:22 ]

http://obligement.free.fr/articles/morphos25_installation.php
"3.1 Starting since the ISO
If you have a previous model of MorphOS 2.x, you will be able to install MorphOS 2.5 starting from the ISO file, without engraving it. But attention: a bad handling could block you here. Ridges this only if you are sure of what you ridges.
Thus to start since the ISO, it is initially necessary to recover the file ?boot.img? which is on the ISO de MorphOS 2.5. Double-click on the ISO, locate the file ?boot.img? (or ?bootefika.img? or ?bootpeg1.img? according to your machine) and copy it, under the name ?boot.img? from your partition where it there already this file, in its old version. Then, place the file ISO de MorphOS 2.5 at the root of a partition (for example ?work?), then r?initialisez your machine, enter the Open Firmware (?Esc touches?) and type:
boot boot.img bi=work: morphos-2.5.iso")

> If I then choose the MorphOS boot partition and hold down the "C" key
> during booting MorphOS, I get a boot from the 2.4 boot.img and then the
> CD's MorphOS2.5 install program

What happens if you don't hold down 'C' key during that phase?

> I have a spare SuperDrive pulled from a dead PowerBook I could try to
> replace my Mini's drive with if they are the same

It doesn't have to be the same to work. If it fits physically then it will work all the way I think.

If I don't hold down the "C" key after choosing my MorphOS partition to boot from after holding down the Alt key when powering on, I get booted into my existing MorphOS2.4 registered installation. Strangely, after most boots this way, I cannot see the MorphOSBoot.iso CD if it is in the internal faulty CD/DVD drive, but I can see it, if it is in the external USB connected CD/DVD drive.

It was hard for me to understand everything written in the post by Divinity. Can anyone else offer a clearer translation of what he was suggesting for me to try?

Bump!

Helpful ideas on how to update to 2.5 on my MacMini when the internal CD/DVD drive is only being recognized sporadically and I can't use the official install procedures.