Mac OS 9.2.1 CD fails to boot on PowerBook G4 running Mac OS 10.3.9

Question

Level 1

19 points

Mac OS 9.2.1 CD fails to boot on PowerBook G4 running Mac OS 10.3.9

I reformatted a friend's PowerBook G4 and installed Mac OS 10.3.9 with no problem. They have a few Classic applications they need to use, but I can't get the Mac OS 9.2.1 CD to boot so i can install it. The CD is bootable, because it says so right on the disc (white disc with orange "9"). I tried setting the startup disk to the CD drive, but that drive won't show up in the startup disk preferences. I've also tried installing from the desktop while booted into Mac OS X, but the OS 9 installer will not install. Any ideas?

PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.25 GHz; 512 MB RAM

Posted on Jul 10, 2007 11:49 AM

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Answer 1

Joe Gordon

Level 4

1,985 points

Jul 10, 2007 2:57 PM in response to temporos

Temporos, welcome, from the Apple in the Finder go About this Mac and select More Info... From the System Profiler select Hardware/ATA and under the main ATA Bus go down to OS 9 Drivers, does it say Yes. If it say No, the drive was formatted without OS 9 driver and will not recognize OS 9 devices.

Joe

Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.10) Users (RAID 0), PM G4 (10.3.9, PM 6500 (10.2.8)

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Answer 2

temporos Author

Level 1

19 points

Jul 10, 2007 5:19 PM in response to Joe Gordon

Aha! The field says, "No." I'm not offered an option to change it, though. Is there a way to boot from OS 9 devices without having to reformat the HDD again?

When I installed OS X, I just used the "Basic Install" option, because I'm not all that familiar with Mac OS. I assume that's why the OS 9 drivers weren't installed. For future reference, what is the best way to install OS X to allow for Classic use?

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Answer 3

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Jul 10, 2007 6:44 PM in response to temporos

Hi, Temporos. Most Powerbook G4 models aren't able to boot into OS 9.anything, regardless of the disc being used.

All Titanium PB G4s, which have two separate hinges and most of their ports on the back panel between the hinges, are bootable into some version of OS 9. Some of them require the model-specific version of OS 9.2.2 that was shipped on the discs that came with them. There is no other source for a bootable OS 9.2.2 on those models.

The many different Aluminum PB G4 models (12", 15" and 17"), which all have a single continuous hinge running all the way across the back and all their ports on the side panels, can't boot into any version of OS 9. The discs that were shipped with them include installers for Classic, i.e. a non-bootable installation of OS 9 that can be used to run OS 9-based apps in OS X.

Whether or not your Powerbook can boot to an OS 9.2.1 retail installer disc is not dependent on having OS 9 drivers installed on the hard drive. Even without those drivers installed, a Powerbook that is capable of booting to a retail 9.2.1 disc will do so, if the disc and the PB's optical drive are in working order. But if the PB can't boot to that disc, nothing you can do will change that.

Please identify your PB G4 model precisely. Then we'll know how to advise you.

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Answer 4

temporos Author

Level 1

19 points

Jul 10, 2007 8:05 PM in response to eww

Thanks for the answers! 🙂

It must be an 15" Aluminum PowerBook G4, because there's a single hinge all along the back. The ports are all on the sides, too. Based on your post, I can't boot up OS 9 no matter what I do. I'll look on the restore CDs again to find a Classic installer, but I didn't see anything there when I looked before.

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Answer 5

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Jul 11, 2007 4:38 AM in response to temporos

Temporos: If you still have the original discs that came with the Powerbook when it was new, rest assured, there's a Classic installer on one of them. The location varies with the model, and I'm not familiar with all the disc configurations of the many different Albooks (TiBooks are my specialty). You may even need to resort to reading the ReadMe file(s) on Disc 1 to learn where things are. But it's there somewhere, it will work, and you won't need OS 9 drivers installed on your hard drive to use Classic.

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