OS 9 Drivers:

Question

Level 1

45 points

OS 9 Drivers:

Once I access my files on those extra hard drives, I will need to move the files temporarily because I need to install OS 9 drivers. I accidentally erased the old drivers when I changed the format of the case sensitive volumes to not-case-sensitive so that way they will load on OS 9.

I Am talking about that maxtor 120gb with lots of volumes on it...and also a few other hard drives will need volumes.

My question:

What are OS 9 drivers and why does OS 9 need them? Why doesn't OS X need OS X drivers? This is very confusing.

lots of machines. all needing parts lol. 2 400mhz 1gb imacs work. 9.2.2/10.3.9, Several Other Machines...

Posted on Nov 4, 2009 3:27 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 4, 2009 5:55 AM in response to In-Correct

Hi, In-Correct -

Can't answer the question directly, other than in general drivers are bits of software that make specific hardware devices usable by a particular OS.

However, there is something you can try before spending the effort to reformat the drive; in some cases, OS 9 drivers can be re-installed if they had been installed previously. See section "I" in this Apple KBase article -
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20774

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Answer 2

Nov 4, 2009 6:05 AM in response to In-Correct

See http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26834

The OS 9 drivers are necessary on a hard drive with OS 9 AND OS X installed only if it is desired to boot into OS 9. The drivers are not required if you only run in classic mode.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 3

Nov 4, 2009 7:08 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

OS 9 Drivers are stand-alone software needed to read data off a hard drive according to a File System. In the case where you boot from an OS 9 Volume, the Driver is installed in a "magic place" at the beginning of the drive where the boot ROM code knows where to find it, load a few blocks of it, and start it up. Before the OS 9 Driver is loaded, your Mac knows nothing about where the named files are on the Drive, so it cannot find anything, including a Driver.

In many cases, you need not have an OS 9 Driver on every OS 9 device, but can get by with a Driver on the Boot device, if the others you want to mount are the same type, (e.g., All IDE drives). Since the driver is already in memory when the second device is mounted, the second drive does not go through the boot-up sequence, and can use the driver already in memory, provided that driver supports the second drive.

Mac OS X gets a primitive temporary Driver in memory through a similar method. It makes a few more assumptions (e.g., about what is available at top-level on the Boot Drive). Then it loads the "real" driver when it loads the Darwin kernel. If you are booting from a SCSI card or sATA card, the primitive boot-up driver is read from the ROM on that card. So aftermarket drive cards must be Mac OS X specific to be bootable.

If you damage the "invisible" BootX file, or move it into a folder, you will not be able to boot Mac OS X.

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Answer 4

In-Correct Author

Level 1

45 points

Nov 4, 2009 8:46 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Since the maxtor hard drive has multiple volumes, there might be an extra possibility:

Am I going to have to erase the entire hard drive and repartition it to be able to install drivers,

or can I install drivers by erasing one of the volumes

???????????????

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Answer 5

Nov 4, 2009 2:53 PM in response to In-Correct

If I correctly recall the sequence when using Disk Utility, you first format (HFS+, Journaled,along with the OS 9 drivers) the drive & then create partitions. So you won't be able to install the drivers on a single erased partition. However, you might try it.

Do you have a backup of the HD?

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 6

In-Correct Author

Level 1

45 points

Nov 4, 2009 11:42 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

I have not backed it up.

Affected hard drive... (I am posting this update because I have more hard drives than I did before)

The affected hard drive is 120gb maxtor, around 14 partitions, 30gb filled up. does not have OS 9 drivers any more.

= Western digital 20gb has windows 98 on it. I assume it is FAT or FAT32. Doesn't have any files on it.... so will I be able to access this drive?
= Samsung 80gb NTFS. I won't be able to stick any files on that one.
= Quantum 6gb. Almost full with files.
= Seagate 10.2gb it has OS 9 and OS X. does not have files on it.

In these imacs I have a 20gb and a 10gb... 14.35gb free and 5.70gb free.

===

I could do it the boring way and copy the files off of the 120gb and onto the imacs and the Seagate 10.2gb... and then completely erase Maxtor, partition it, and install drivers, and move the files back on Maxtor.

===

I am going to keep the two USB enclosures, but I am going to get a fire wire enclosure...and perhaps fire wire dock in the future.
Also I know that 3.5 PATA are being replaced by SATA...I know that SSDs are more expensive than other hard drives... are SATA more expensive than PATA??

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Answer 7

In-Correct Author

Level 1

45 points

Nov 28, 2009 5:13 PM in response to In-Correct

BootX? What about mach_kernel, mach.sym, and mach????? And also automount folder?????? I am in OS 9 and looking at the hard drive folder and can see all these hidden OS X files. Why can't OS 9 see BootX?????

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