Whenever I try to boot OS9, it goes to a blinking question mark. It boots Tiger fine. If I disconnect the internal hard drive and boot with the OS9 disc in the CD drive, then it sits at the ? folder screen before switching to the ? floppy screen.
Tough to tell yet, but...
Might be time to replace the PRAM Battery, 4 years is close to their lifespan, far less if ever without AC power, & can cause strange startup problems...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/
Does it eventually boot from the OS9 Install Disc?
If it boots from OSX, run Disk Utility & Verfy the Hard Drive, (not Verify Permissions).
Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...
It boots fine into the installation of 10.4.11 on it's drive, as well as the installation of 10.5 beta on an external FW drive.
Have you run Disk Utility to Verfy the Hard Drive, (not Verify Permissions).
Is OS9 on it's own or a Shared Partition?
I've tried Mac OS 9 on a shared partition, on a CD, on it's own partition, and on it's own disk.
So, every install of OS9 fails???
Does it seem to install fine?
Do the HDs have OS9 Drivers Installed?
It doesn't even get to that point. Like I said in the OP, it doesn't even reach Happy Mac; it first shows a ? in front of a folder for a second, then switches to a ? in front of a floppy and just sits there. This occurs from any disk or CD I try.
The machine is at my workplace, and I'm no longer there. Tomorrow I'm going to try to boot it off an old 9/X TechTool Deluxe disc and the Software Restore discs that came with an old iMac G3.
What OS 9 Install CD (full version) are you trying to use? Is it an original disk for that machine, or a retail one?
The G4 Cube originally came with a model-specific version of OS 9.0.4.
It can not use any OS 9 Install CDs for earlier versions.
It also probably can not use any model-specific install CD from another model machine. The model-specific OS 9 install disks have a blue-gray or gray label.
In addition to the original disks that came with it, the Cube can use a retail OS 9.1 or OS 9.2.1 Install CD. All retail OS 9 Install CDs have a white label with a large gold 9 on them.
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There may be another issue, perhaps. Several users of G4s (and of some G3s) have reported that after installing the firmware update(s) needed to make the machine suitable for running OS X, their original Install/Restore disks did not work, not even to boot the machine. This seems to have affected those models which shipped with OS 9.0.4 and earlier. Fortunately, they do seem to be able to use appropriate retail OS 9 Install disks, OS 9.1 or later as applicable.
I've tried an iMac specific 9.2.2 disc (Which has booted in the past a Bondi Blue iMac, a Clamshell SE iBook, and a PB 1400), the original Cube 9.0.4 disc, and a retail 9.1 disc. As for the firmware update issue, I'm actually trying to get OS 9 running to perform that very update; I have a processor upgrade card to install but can't install it yet because it needs that firmware. According to System Profiler, the machine currently has firmware 3.3.
If Don can't help, then I doubt I can, just tossing in this in case...
From your original post -
If I disconnect the internal hard drive and boot with the OS9 disc in the CD drive, then it sits at the ? folder screen before switching to the ? floppy screen.
That should work - any G4 should boot to a CD even when no hard drive is present.
Are you holding down the C key on the keyboard from the time the startup chimes go off? If so, is the keyboard the original one, or a newer one - some of the newer Apple ones are flagged as requiring certain versions of OS X as a minimum. Some non-Apple keyboards are not compatible with Mac startup keyboard commands.
The description you give sounds like the behavior when a CD is in the drive but the machine has not received an instruction to use it for booting. The solution in that case is to just wait - the machine will cycle through a preset sequence of looking for a bootable volume, and unfortunately on older machines the CD drive is near the last one in the sequence. Eventually it should find the CD, though might take more than 5 minutes to get there.
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If you boot while holding the Option key down, does Startup Manager appear (bright blue screen with large icons)? If so, is there an icon for the CD?
I can select it in Tiger's Startup Disk as well as the Open Firmware boot menu. It seems to get to the point that it recognizes that there's an OS9 disk in the drive, and it switches to whatever mode it uses to boot OS9, and hangs there.
One more thing, the machine does agree to boot to the Powerlogix firmware upgrade CD (which can't find anything to upgrade as FW 4.1.9 isn't installed). This disc apparently registers itself as some form of OS9 in Startup disk.
If you want to boot the machine in question into Mac OS 9, Either a 9.1 or 9.2.1 CD with Don's avatar as a label must be used. 'C' key may sometimes fail, and you have to boot from the Option key using an Apple wired keyboard. The fact the Powerlogix firmware CD works, suggests it may have a Powerlogix upgrade card installed. In that event you may have to get the correct firmware from Powerlogix and the corresponding compatible version of 9 installed. Check with Powerlogix, if you suspect this might be the case. Powerlogix support has been moved to OWC's website here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/processors.cfm
I actually have the CPU card ready to install. The instructions say to install the firmware on that CD before installing the card, but after installing FW 4.1.9. I'm trying to get OS9 on the machine to run the 4.1.9 update.
Weird. It should have no problem booting to a retail OS 9.1 Install CD.
Have you another Mac capable of booting to the retail OS 9.1 Install CD? If so, that would be a good way to verify the CD.
It would also allow trying plan C. That is, to install a Universal (boot any Mac) install of OS 9.1 on a firewire drive, then try booting the Cube from that. To perform a Universal install of OS 9 -
1) Boot to the CD, then run the OS installer. Step through the pages in the installer (choosing the correct destination volume in the process) until you get to the "Install Software" page, the page with the "Start" button on it. Don't click that button.
2) Click the "Customize" button at the bottom left of the page.
3) On the new page, click the pulldown menu to the right of "Mac OS 9.1", and select "Customized Installation..." from the list offered.
4) On the next new page, at the top is another pulldown menu labelled "Selection:" - click that menu and select "Universal Installation".
5) OK that page, then click the "Start" button.
This will produce an install that is capable of booting any Mac for which that OS 9 version is valid.
My Power Mac G4 Cube refuses to boot OS9.
