Emac and OS 9

Hi, corrytonapple -

An old iPod, one with a hard drive and a firewire 400 port, could be set to run as a firewire hard drive. In that mode it could be used as an external firewire drive, for data storage or even for booting.

I've never owned one, so don't know the details of setting one up to do that.

Caveats -

1) To use it as a boot volume, the iPod would need to have an OS on it that is bootable by the machine to which it is connected.

2) I understand (from other posts a while ago) that using an iPod for booting regularly or for an extended period is not recommended. The drive mechanism in those iPods was intended for intermittent use, not for long-term spinning such as a normal hard drive is designed to do; one of the issues is probably heat.

Hello Again corrytonapple,

Also review My Reply in your other related Topic.

ali b

Hello

You may try the following Open Firmware command to boot Mac OS 9 (English version), provided OS9 and OSX reside in same partition and the machine is currently set to boot OSX from that partition.

To get into Open Firmware command line interface, press Command-Option-O-F when starting up machine until Open Firmware command prompt appears on screen.

Then type the following command carefully.

boot hd:,System%20FolderMac%20OS%20ROM

Note :
• There're no spaces except for the one between 'boot' and 'hd'.
• 'hd' is followed by a colon and a comma.
• Boot file is System FolderMac OS ROM, where every space is replaced by %20.

and press return to issue the command. It will boot OS9 hopefully.

Once OS9 is booted, you must set the startup disk by Startup Disk control panel.
(Since the command above does not modify any configuration variable in Open Firmware, you need to set the startup disk manually in OS9. Otherwise the machine will try to boot OSX again at the next startup time.)

---
In case the command throws error and you're sure you have made no typo, then you'd need to specify the partition number. Something like this (which specifies the 9th partition) :

boot hd:9,System%20FolderMac%20OS%20ROM

To discover the correct partition number, type the following command :

printenv boot-device

Press return and you'll get something like the following output :

boot-device mac-io/ata-4@1f000/@0:9,\:tbxi

In this example, the 9 in '.../@0:9' is the partition number of current boot device.
It may vary. Use the number actually returned in your environment.

---
In case none of the above works, you can safely shut-down the machine by typing the command below and pressing return.

shut-down

Good luck,
H

Message was edited by: Hiroto (fixed typos)

Hello

Hmm. Then it seems we need to actually bless the System Folder after all...

The blessed folder's directory ID is stored in HFS+ volume header and Open Firmware nomally searches this directory for bootinfo file with file type 'tbxi', which is "Mac OS ROM" in OS9 and "BootX" in OSX.
I thought specifing the full path to this file may suffice even if the blessed folder id is not properly set in volume header, but it seems to be wrong, at least as far as OS9 is concerned.

So now we'd need to set the blessed folder id in HFS+ volume header (sector 2) and also set the boot blocks (sectors 0 & 1) properly in order to boot OS9. I would not try to do it in Open Firmware if possible at all.

There's bless(8) command in OSX, that we may use. Two recipes here.
One is for the case that you can boot the target machine in OSX single user mode.
Another is for the case that you can set the target machine to target disk mode and use another OSX machine to modify the target.

cf.
bless(8)
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/m an8/bless.8.html

Mac OS X: How to start up in single-user or verbose mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492



---
• RECIPE 1
Using target machine only, provided it can boot OSX in single user mode.

1) Boot OSX in single user mode by holding down Command-S when starting up machine.

2) Type the following command and press return to mount the root directory :

mount -uw /

3) Type the following command and press return to bless OS9 and set boot blocks :

bless -folder9 "/System Folder" -bootBlockFile "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"

or

bless --folder9 "/System Folder" --bootBlockFile "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"

*Note that it seems some versions of bless(8) require the first syntax and others the second.
If the syntax is wrong, command won't run and error message will appear.

4) Type the following command and press return to reboot the machine :

reboot

---
• RECIPE 2
Using the target machine in Firewire Target Disk Mode and another rescuer machine with OSX installed.

1) Boot the target machine in Firewire Target Disk Mode.
Boot the rescue machine and connect the target machine to it via Firewire.

2) Start Terminal.app in recuer machine, that is located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.

3) Type the following command in Terminal's window and press return :

sudo bless -folder9 "/Volumes/Mac HD/System Folder" -bootBlockFile "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"

or

sudo bless --folder9 "/Volumes/Mac HD/System Folder" --bootBlockFile "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"

When requested, enter administrator's password and press return.

*You need to change the name of the target volume, that is "Mac HD" in the above examples, to the real name.
*Note that it seems some versions of bless(8) require the first syntax and others the second.
If the syntax is wrong, command won't run and error message will appear.

4) Disconnect and restart the target machine.



Hope this may help,
H

Hello

You mean you have done the RECIPE 1 without seeing any errors and still have the machine freezing at happy mac icon?

If so, I'd suspect something is broken in your volume.
Since you can boot OSX in single user mode, try repairing the volume by fsck(8).

To do that, boot OSX in single user mode and type the following command and press return :

/sbin/fsck -fy

Repeat running this command until you see the message saying the volume appears to be ok.

cf.
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

After verifying and/or repairing the volume, try RECIPE 1 from step 2) afresh.
If this should not solve the problem for the machine to freeze at happy mac icon, I'd conclude your OS9 system is indeed damaged beyond repair.

---
As for RECIPE 2, it can make difference especially when the rescuer's OSX system is more sound than the target's.

Good luck,
H

In case, I wish to elaborate on RECIPE2's step 4) as follows.

4a) Unmount the target disk ("Mac HD" in this example) in rescuer OSX. To do it, 'eject' the disk in Finder.

4b) Physically disconnect the target machine from rescuer machine and then restart the target machine in nomal (non target disk) mode.

---
As for bootable disc for maintenance purpose, DiskWarrior 4.0's bootable CD can likely be used for your iMac G3 and eMac G4. (DiskWarrior 4.1 or later's bootable disc cannot be used for these models.) However, I'd guess DiskWarrior's bootable disc is designed to be used for DiskWarrior's own job and therefore it may not provide full command set of BSD subsystem, which include bless(8) etc.

Also I think any version of OSX install disc that can boot your machine should include Disk Utility etc, which can be used for disk maintenance. If, by any chance, it also includes a software similar to Startup Disk Control Panel of OS9 installer disc to set the startup disk, that would be perfect for your need to set the machine to boot OS9 (provided that the installed OS9 system is sound and bootable).

H