G4 867 won't boot in OS9

[Baggy]

Oh, woe is me! I just bought a G4 867 DP on ebay, all seemed well when it booted into OSX so proceeded with the purchase. It had Jag installed so I wiped the drives (a 120gb and a 60gb) and put Panther on to the 120gb.
Went to install Classic on the 120gb, no problem, tried to boot in 9 and first gave me a flashing floppy and then booted in OSX, so I zapped the PRAM. Same thing, no drive to be found. Did a fresh install of OS9 on the 60gb, same thing.
The OS9 install came from the original Software Restore CD.
Took out the 256mb ram and put in a brand new 512mb. Same thing.
Took out both drives, put in a brand new 40gb, installed OS9, wouldn't boot.
Reset firmware and NVRAM, no change.

Any suggestions? Everything seems to work fine in OSX and also Classic boots up ok, although not put it to any serious work yet.

[kaye]

Stab in the dark Baggy but it sounds as if the OS9 System folder is not blessed. I don't know if you can bless it from X since I have only done the following procedure from a backup drive in OS9.

I boot to the backup drive in OS9. Drag the System suitcase of the unblessed OS9 System folder to the desktop, wait for maybe 15 seconds, then drag the System suitcase back into the System folder. Now the System folder should have a Happy Mac icon on it.

In your case, you will have to play around with it to see what works, such as from within X (which I have not tried) or from booting with an OS9 CD or the Restore CD. k

[TZ]

If you select OS 9 System Folder in System Preference : Startup Disk - that should bless it. But might want to also go to Classic preference first, right after doing the above, and select it there (which it sounds like you did as Classic launches fine).

But who knows? It could have firmware problem? or a swapped out frankenstein mobo logic board. Doubt it could accept MDD FW800 OS X-only.

the Classic OS9 though has to have 9.2.2+. On the Restore disks on some is a .dmg of the OS9General.dmg that is later than 9.2.1 or 9.2.2. Contains an Applications and System Folder as well as Utilities, about 435MB in size on that dmg.

There were some MDD 867's, too so is this one? ATA/66 and ATA/100 drive cages, room for dual optical drives. Native support for larger drives.

[Baggy]

It is a mirror door, the system folder is blessed, wouldn't run in Classic otherwise. It now partly boots into OS9 but stops just before the extension parade and stays there.
As I said, runs fine in Classic and all three of the OS9 systems can be selected in Startup Disk. Oddly though when I hold down the option key at startup I mostly only get a choice of two startup systems, sometimes it is OS9 + OSX, other times it might be two OS9 systems - very strange indeed.

[TZ]

But where did you get the Classic OS 9? If not from Apple Restore disks that came with MDD, it won't have the system resources to boot your MDD, yet still run Classic fine. It is later than 9.2.2 req'd for booting. Also, it helps to have this OS 9 on its own partition.

If you can dig around in hidden folders on Restore disk and find the .dmg file, you can drag and drop to install it somewhere. But I don't think you have the right OS 9 for your machine.

[Baggy]

Even curiouser! I can boot it with Techtool 3 and check the drives, except that the OSX drive doesn't appear at all. If I boot using Diskwarrior it hangs just befor the extension parade!!
Boots off Apple HW test disc and all tests pass, not surprising for that sw though, I have never found even known faults with it.

Seems like a real bummer.

[TZ]

So there are two things from this: it is bootable, it may not have OS 9 drivers (which are installed by default and never gave me trouble but others have), and there is something needed in Disk Warrior and your system folder - same as I said, you need a 'special" version of OS9.

Maybe ask MicroMat and Alsoft about MDD bootable versions of their software.

Also, burn your own bootable OS 9 CD/DVD at some point.

[kaye]

How about booting the Disk Warrior CD with extensions disabled? Will it do that and then do its magic? k

[unclemac]

But where did you get the Classic OS 9? If not from Apple Restore disks that came with MDD, it won't have the system resources to boot your MDD, yet still run Classic fine. It is later than 9.2.2 req'd for booting. Also, it helps to have this OS 9 on its own partition.

If you can dig around in hidden folders on Restore disk and find the .dmg file, you can drag and drop to install it somewhere. But I don't think you have the right OS 9 for your machine.

Agreed. 9 is getting to be a pain. A coworker just had to setup a new ibook that had already been cloned to our current work setup for 10.3 (no 9/Classic installed).... Erased the drive and tried to install 9.2 from full retain CD (old habits die hard ).

Could not do it. Tried several different versions of 9 CDs too.

I had to remind him that he needed to use the Restore CD from the ibook, which meant reinstalling 10, just to then run the Restore disk, and then trash 10 again, 'cause the need was a clean 9 only setup.

Any chance your Disk Warrior is not current? I would think you would need at least 3.0 to boot an MDD, maybe even 3.0.1?

[Baggy]

Still no joy on this one. The only successful OS9 install came from the Restore cd that came with the Mac. It is possible, but unlikely, that the cd is not the one that ORIGINALLY came with it but from another mac. If that were the case then the ROM enabler would be the wrong one.
A friend of mine has the same mac so I will borrow his cds and try that - I will post the results here tomorrow :-)