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Reinstalling Classic on PowerBook G4 running Tiger

I use my old powerbook G4 15" 1.5Ghz to run important business software that only runs in Classic. My hard drive died however (flashing folder with ?mark). All attempts to revive the old hard drive failed, so I bought a new internal hard drive and installed it myself. I found three old OS disks lying around (OS9, OS 10.1.3 and OS 10.4 tiger). I chose to install Tiger and all is well, except I don't have access to Classic, which was the whole point. I wish I knew if either of these three disks was the original system software for this particular Mac, but I can't remember. Seem like if I use the original disk, it would include Classic with it's install.


Basic question is: How do I get Classic running again on this PowerBook? I do have an old G4 Titanium that still runs. Can I pull an OS9 system folder off of that? Can I use my OS9 disk somehow?


Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm not a computer whiz, so explain in layman's terms please.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 7, 2013 2:42 PM

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Posted on Apr 7, 2013 4:41 PM

If you just want to run classic mode, copy the System Folder from another Mac that has OS 9.1 (or better with 9.2.1 or 9.2.2) installed. A USB thumb dive works great for this. Transfer the folder to your Mac. It won't interfere with your OS X system which is in a folder titled System.


You won't be able to use your OS 9 install disc. If you have the install disc that came with your PB, you should be able to install OS 9 classic from the disc.


Cheers, Tom 😉

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Apr 7, 2013 4:41 PM in response to Griz30

If you just want to run classic mode, copy the System Folder from another Mac that has OS 9.1 (or better with 9.2.1 or 9.2.2) installed. A USB thumb dive works great for this. Transfer the folder to your Mac. It won't interfere with your OS X system which is in a folder titled System.


You won't be able to use your OS 9 install disc. If you have the install disc that came with your PB, you should be able to install OS 9 classic from the disc.


Cheers, Tom 😉

Apr 8, 2013 1:24 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Thanks for your replay Texas Mac Man,


I tried to copy my system folder off my G4 Titanium and it wouldnt let me, giving reference to an "Icon" name that was too long, or using invalid characters. I couldnt find the offending culprit and decided to take another hard look for the original system disc. Success! I fond the the original disc set at work and will take them home to try tonight. The only question now is which of the discs I use. All grey discs say PowerBook G4. One says Software Install and the other three say Software Restore 1 of 1, 2, or 3. What do you think ... Restore or Install disk?

Apr 8, 2013 5:32 PM in response to Griz30

Okay, Im home now, but this is not working like I thought. I have tried both the Restore and Install disks, but shutting down and restarting with the C key does not boot me from either disk. It just takes me into OSX finder. Do I just need to drag something (system folder, disk image, etc) from one of these disks? I figured I would boot from the disk and run the install, but no go

Apr 9, 2013 9:49 AM in response to Griz30

I have classic on a 2004 iBook with Mac OS X 10.4.11. I had a clone of an older Pismo Powerbook that had both OSX and OS 9.2.2 partitions. All I needed was to copy the System folder from the 9.2.2 clone to the iBook and everything worked well.


I found this post from Charles Dyer which may help with sorting out the different disks.


If you have a PowerPC Mac, you can install Classic several ways. The easiest is to use the system discs which shipped with your Mac. Older PPC Macs shipped with a separate OS 9 CD; boot from that CD and run the Installer. Newer PPC Macs shipped with two or more CDs or a DVD; if you have two CDs or more, on one of the CDs, usually CD 2, there will be an icon named something like 'Additional Software & Classic'. If you have the DVD, there'll be a similar icon there. Double-click that icon, and install Classic.



Apr 9, 2013 2:21 PM in response to dalstott

Thanks for your help (both of you). I've got it working now. I seems all I had do do was drag the classic system folder off of the original install / restore disk and now classic shows up in the system preferences and there is an OS9 icon on the menu bar of the desktop. Launching my old classic application now automatically launches OS9 / classic environment for me.


Cheers!

Reinstalling Classic on PowerBook G4 running Tiger

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