Select Startup Disk Locks Computer?

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Level 6

13,881 points

Select Startup Disk Locks Computer?

Hello! I'm a long time Mac user and OS9 is old work but I've run into a problem I can't seem to alleviate. When I click to select a startup disk in the startup disk control panel it locks the computer. My utilities all give me a clean bill of health and I haven't done or added anything to the system folder in the last couple of years. I haven't had any crashes or locks in a couple of years also. I tried trashing the startup disk prefs file which had no effect also. Usually I don't have any problems sorting out an extension problem but I'm at a loss on this one. Any ideas? Tom

Oh yes, the computer is a G-3 minitower, 768 megs of ram, one internal scsi on sys bus, one internal ide drive and an internal scsi on a card; also an external firewire drive. OS9.2.2.And the problem manifests itself on any drive selection. Tom

G-4/Sawtooth/1.2ghz Sonnet/10.3.6/2gig ram, Mac OS X (10.3.6)

Posted on Dec 11, 2005 12:13 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 11, 2005 2:43 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hi, Thomas -

Try throwing away the file Startup Disk Preferences (it's in System Folder >> Preferences). Empty the Trash.

Then double the Preferred memory allocation for the Startup Disk control panel (that control panel, like most in OS 9, is actually an application) -
Article #18278 - Assigning More Memory to an Application

Then restart, and give Startup Disk a try.

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Answer 2

Thomas Bryant Author

Level 6

13,881 points

Dec 11, 2005 2:55 PM in response to Don Archibald

Thanks for the reply Don. I tried trashing the pref file and also upping the menory but still to no avail. I do however think it's a disk driver issue but my Apple drive setup shows it as an unsupported disk and I'm using the Silverlining Pro driver. Tom

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Answer 3

Dec 11, 2005 3:22 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

When troubleshooting a problem like this, it's best to disconnect all external devices except the monitor, kbd & mouse.

The startup selection is saved in PRAM, so a PRAM zap may work.

Cheers, Tom

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Answer 4

Thomas Bryant Author

Level 6

13,881 points

Dec 16, 2005 1:04 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hello Again! Update....apparently it was the disk driver. I used HardDiskSpeedtools to install another driver and now it doesn't freeze upon trying to select the disk as a startup however when I clicked restart the computer tried to restart but won't will post back as new conditions improve. Tom

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Answer 5

Thomas Bryant Author

Level 6

13,881 points

Dec 16, 2005 1:20 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hello Again! Problem solved! After reinstalling a new driver and then the failure to boot I rebuilt the desktop which straightened things out and now all is well. Tom

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Answer 6

Dec 17, 2005 8:18 AM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hi, Tom -

Glad you got it resolved - thanks for taking the time to post back in with your solution.

Suggestion - if the drivers you are referring to are on an internal drive, and when you get the time or opportunity, consider re-initializing (deep-wiping and reformatting) the drive using OS 9's Drive Setup, so that you can get Apple drivers placed on the drive.

Third-party driver software was sometimes better than Apple's prior to OS 8.6 or OS 9; since then, however, the Apple drivers work well, and are the best choice for those drives which can use them.

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Answer 7

Thomas Bryant Author

Level 6

13,881 points

Dec 17, 2005 10:00 AM in response to Don Archibald

Hi Don! I had already tried using the Apple Drive Setup and got the message that it was an unsupported drive. The drive in question is one running off of a scsi card. Tom

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Answer 8

Dec 17, 2005 11:27 AM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hi, Tom -

That sometimes happens when a 3rd-party driver has been installed.

Although OS 9's Drive Setup can not initialize and format drives connected via firewire or USB, it can do that for SCSI drives. However, if the drive has had 3rd-party drivers installed, their presence can confound Drive Setup.

The solution then is to put the drive into a PC and format it as a PC drive. Then bring it back to the Mac; Drive Setup should then work on it. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to find a PC which can handle a SCSI drive.

An alternate may be to use OSX's Disk Utility, which in many ways is more robust and capable than OS 9's Drive Setup.

Since the drive is working now, redoing it may not be of great priority - but it is something to keep in mind for the future, such as if (or when) you install OSX on that machine.

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