Getting OS 9 Classic on 10.3.9 Panther- Installing classic

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Getting OS 9 Classic on 10.3.9 Panther- Installing classic

Hi,

I have an iBook g3 clamshell (for sale by the way), it has an upgraded 128Mb ram, g3 366mhz, OS X 10.3.9 panther, 6 Gb, Graphite SE.

I bought it used on ebay, but it didn't come with any original install discs. It doesn't have iLife, classic, or many features Panther should have.

My question:

I need to run old Os 9 programs on my OS X. I have an install disc for Os 9.0, but it needs classic to install! Is there a program that will emulate OS 9, or a way I can install Os 9? Please help me!

ibook clamshell g3, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Jul 6, 2006 2:34 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2006 2:51 PM in response to appleibookg3

Hi, appleibookg3 -

Welcome to Apple's Discussions.

I have an install disc for Os 9.0....

If that disk is a full-install CD, either model-specific to that machine or a retail one (the retail OS 9 Install disks have a white label with a large gold 9), then all you should need to do is boot to the CD and run the installer (Mac OS Install).

The installer will not run in OSX - that is, while the machine is booted to OSX. Hence the need to boot to the CD, so the machine is being run by OS 9 on the CD.

If you're not familiar with boting to a CD - with the CD in the drive, restart or boot. Immediately press the C key, keep it held down until you get the Welcome to Mac OS 9 screen.

Note - it takes significantly longer to boot to a CD than it does to boot to an OS on the hard drive.

***

If the previous owner re-initialized the drive before installing OSX, when you boot to the OS 9 Install CD you may not see the icon of the hard drive on the desktop. That issue is described in this Apple KBase article -
Article #106849 - Disk Is Available in Mac OS X But Not in Mac OS 9

That article mentions one possibility of recovering from that situation, by using Drive Setup to re-install OS 9 drivers on a drive which once had them.

Unfortunately that rarely works, and it then becomes necessary to re-initialize the drive again, this time ensuring the option to install OS 9 drivers is selected (if using OSX's Disk Utility to do the work). Re-initializing the drive will erase everything on it, so it is necessary to archive off anything you do not want to lose before redoing the drive.

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Answer 2

appleibookg3 Author

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Jul 6, 2006 7:17 PM in response to Don Archibald

I booted-up from the
OS 9 disc, then clicked to install. It started installing, but then siad:
" The installer cannot update the version of system software ont he disk named 'Mac HD'.

Please choose a different destination disk, or perform a clean installation."

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Answer 3

Jul 6, 2006 9:05 PM in response to appleibookg3

Hi, appleibookg3 -

That sometimes happens when there is an existing install of OSX on the drive. The installer confuses one of OSX's folders as being an unknown version of OS 9, one it can not update.

The solution is to do as the message suggests - a Clean Install. Note that a Clean Install does not remove anything.

Article #58176 - Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

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