G4 Mac - 2 Hard Drives and 2 Operating Systems

Hi

It's certainly possible to install OS X Tiger on the new drive and leave OS 9 on the old drive. Switching between them may be a slight pain though as you'd have to reboot the computer.

To switch from OS 9 to OS X, you'd have to select the Startup Disk control panel, select the OS X system folder and reboot.

To switch from OS X to OS 9, you'd have to select the Startup Disk system preference, select the OS 9 system folder and reboot.

You could try holding down the option/alt key at startup which may allow you to choose which OS you want to use.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to make OS 9 the default choice regardless. You could try setting the startup disk to OS 9 and using the option key to boot into OS X. Assuming that works and doesn't permanently change the startup disk it may be okay. The mother would just boot as normal. The father would boot holding down the option key and select OS X. I guess the only way to be sure is to try it out.

Hi, Davey -

Using the Option key at startup brings up Startup Manager, from which the desired OS can be chosen (only one OS per volume will be shown) -
Article #106178 - Startup Manager: How to Select a Startup Volume

What should work easier -

- set OS 9 as the boot OS in Startup Disk in OSX, then shut down. Do the same in OS 9. This will ensure that setting is transferred to PRAM, and has been entered in the prefs files in both OS 9 and OSX. Then never change that setting in Startup Disk in either OS.

- when you want to boot into OSX, just hold down the X key from the beginning of boot. This instructs the Mac to boot to the first OSX it finds, but does not change the boot OS setting in PRAM.