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Freeze on blank gray screen at startup in OS 9.2.2!?

Hi,
I've been a happy OS 9.2.2 user for many years on my G4/933. I have OSX.3 on a 2nd internal drive. But I do mainly audio recording, and I find OSX to be extremely sluggish, so I work primarily in OS9.
Everything had been working fine, but then last night as I restarted from OSX with my OS 9.2.2 partition selected as the startup disk, the computer rebooted then completely froze on a blank gray screen. No icon, question mark, sad Mac. Nothing. Since then I have restarted many time by holding down the Option key to go back to OSX. While in OSX I ran Disk Repair on the internal drive with OS 9 on it. And I then ran Disk Warrior 2.1 for OS9 on the drive. They both found some errors, but nothing critical and they were fixed. But I still get the gray screen of nothingness when restarting under OS 9.2.2.
With some hesitation I tried "zapping the PRAM", which i've never done before. As I held down the Command/Option/P/R keys the screen just stayed black, which was scary. When I finally let the keys go it changed the Gray Screen of Nothingness and I was able to reboot and get back to OSX. I have no idea if I actually zapped my PRAM or not, or if that is the right thing to do.
I can function in OSX, but I'm really hobbled without being able to work in my good old OS 9 environment. I would really appreciate any tips...!
Thanks - Steve

G4 (circa July '02) Mac OS 9.2.x

G4 (circa July '02) Mac OS 9.2.x

Posted on May 20, 2006 1:23 PM

27 replies

Jun 3, 2006 2:55 PM in response to Stephen Rossiter

Hi, Stephen -

There could be.

Another possibility is the presence of hardware not supported by an OS 9 System Folder on a CD (such as the absence of any required supporting software for the hardware). This could be a PCI card, or an attached device.

Jun 4, 2006 6:30 AM in response to Don Archibald

Perhaps it has to do with PCI hardware, but last week when I had this problem I was able to boot up from a disk warrior CD. This week, no go. Next step, I think, is to take out the PCI cards...

Jun 4, 2006 6:12 PM in response to Stephen Rossiter

New guy here...I just hosed my Mac. I run dual OS X and OS 9. I use OS 9 primarily for a newsletter in Quark. I reset to boot up in OS 9 and now have the infamous gray screen. I followed your previous instructions of holding down the option key when booting up. I do get a screen that has a 3/4 circle tab and an straight arrow tab. When I click on either it goes back to the gray screen. Any ideas how I can reset to start up in OS X? Of course my deadline for the newsletter is tomorrow.

Mike

Jun 4, 2006 6:28 PM in response to mailman06

Hi, mailman06 -

Welcome to Apple's Discussions.

Holding down the Option key during startup invokes Startup Manager -
Article #106178 - Startup Manager: How to Select a Startup Volume

If all that is visible are the two arrows (circular = rescan, straight = do it), then there could be something wrong with the drive - or, if your drive is not partitioned, it may be trying to display the last OS booted to (which is all that Startup Manager can display for a single volume), OS 9, and that OS has been bollixed in some manner.

Try forcing the machine to boot to OSX. There's two ways to try that -

• Boot the machine, immediately press the X key, keep it held down until it begins to boot to OSX. This is a hardware command to the Mac to boot to the first OSX it finds.

• Boot the machine, immediately press Command-Option-Shift-Delete, keep them held down until it starts to boot to OSX. This is a hardware command that instructs the Mac to skip the OS preset in PRAM (usually the last one booted to), and to boot to the next available OS it finds.

If OS 9 is unrecognizable as a valid OS for some reason, you can also try resetting PRAM. This will clear any preset boot OS setting in PRAM, and the Mac will then seek the first valid bootable OS it can find.
Article #2238 - How to Reset PRAM and NVRAM

Yet another way - boot to a CD, and try selecting the OS you want then.

If the machine won't boot to anything, there's something else at work.

Jun 4, 2006 6:52 PM in response to Don Archibald

Don, Thanks for the options. I just posted a new thread but your answered worked! I was able to reboot holding down the X key. Would you know of way for me to increase the memory in OS 9? I create a newsleter monthly in Quark and cannot even resize a picture with out getting an error message that I am out of memory. That's why I crashed it.

Niel

Level 10

727,217 points

Jun 4, 2006 9:52 PM in response to mailman06

Would you know of way for me to increase the memory in OS 9?

Select an application(not an alias) in the Finder, choose Get Info from the File menu, and increase the numbers in the Preferred Size box, and if necessary, the Minimum Size box.

(12839)

Jun 4, 2006 10:26 PM in response to mailman06

Hi, mailman06 -

You're quite welcome.

In addition to Niel's sage advice, this Apple KBase article may have info you can use -
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=152297

samplaire

Level 2

184 points

Jun 5, 2006 3:37 AM in response to Don Archibald

Hi,

The whole thread reminds me of a situation occured to me. I then tried to do all the things you mentioned and nothing helped. Then I just unplugged my external powered USB hub and my machine started with no problems. After that I replugged the hub (first I unplugged it powersuply and then replugged) and everything started as expected. This situation (booting in OSX, changing the startup volume to my os9 volume, trying to boot from the os9 volume with grey blank screen) occured 3 or four times and always the above steps helped.

Jun 5, 2006 8:00 AM in response to samplaire

Ok, so I'm back in the studio this morning. I wasn't going to have time to try any fixes, so I figured it was going to be OSX this week, that I'd muddle through with that.

But I guess my partner, as he has been asked to do, reset the startup disk preferences to OS9 after he was done with OSX this weekend. So I turn on the computer this morning, and it boots right into OS9, as if nothing had ever happened. Not that that makes me feel "warm and fuzzy", as my old boss used to say when software bugs would mysteriously fix themselves. But we are definitely in "intermittent" land. I don't know how, if at all, that changes any of the diagnoses above. Should I still take out the PCI cards and press that secret button? Should I buy new RAM? I should probably get a new battery, even if the date and time continue to be fine, in both OS's...

Weird...

AMercado

Level 1

15 points

Jun 5, 2006 8:54 AM in response to Stephen Rossiter

That is weird. I’ve never trusted a computer problem that “fixes” itself so I can commiserate with not feeling warm & fuzzy. It’s completely up to you whether you want to attempt the troubleshooting since it appears to be working fine for you.

I suggest that you wait until the end of your work day to re-trash the aforementioned prefs, pull the cards & reset the PMU. My reasoning is that the Mac may be working properly today but it might not tomorrow and it can’t hurt to do reset everything just in case.

Jun 5, 2006 2:40 PM in response to AMercado

I will try all this, but I will definitely need to allow for some downtime. I'm curious about the PMU reset. I don't see any mention of this for G4 towers, just for PowerBooks and iBooks. And there is mention of an SMU reset for late model G5s. Is this switch definitely on the G4 tower? What does this do exactly...?

Jun 5, 2006 2:51 PM in response to Stephen Rossiter

Hi, Stephen -

This Apple KBase article covers resetting the PMU for G4s -
Article #95037 - G4 (AGP) - Resetting PMU

Although that article is written around a G4 (AGP) model, it applies to all G4s with AGP graphics - from the first G4 (AGP) to the last G4 MDD model. The specific location of the PMU button varies from model to model, but is usually in the vicinity of the battery.

Freeze on blank gray screen at startup in OS 9.2.2!?