Mac OS 9 won't start

Hi, Jitanjafora -

The most common reason for a startup to be interrupted or hang partway through is an extensions conflict. To test for the possibility of that, try booting into OS 9 with Extensions Off - restart or boot, then immediately press the Shift key, keep it held down until you get the Extensions Off message on the Welcome screen.

If that boots okay, then try booting with the Mac OS Base set of extensions active. To set that, restart or boot, immediately press the Spacebar, keep it held down until Extensions Manager opens - it should do that just before extensions would normally start to load. At that time select Mac OS Base from the Selected Set pulldown menu, and continue the startup.

If that boots okay, try setting Mac OS All as the Selected Set in Extensions Manager, and restart.

If that boots okay, you'll need to solve for what extensions of the remainder of your normal set are causing the problem. To do that, first create a new set (use the Duplicate Set button in Extensions Manager to do that), name it something appropriate, okay it, make sure it is the Selected Set. Then start testing.

The fastest way to do that is by halves - turn on half the rest of your usual ones, restart to test; if that boots okay, turn on half the remainder of your usual set, restart to test. At the point when booting fails you'll know the culprit is in the last group activated - turn half of those off, and restart to test. And so on.

To make it easier, you can create a text file of the current status of extensions and control panels by selecting Save Set As Text... in Extensions Manager's File menu. You can print that, then use it as a checklist.

That sounds complicated, but it goes very fast - even if you had as many as 500 extensions, you'd be able to isolate the culprit in no more than 10 restarts.

Jitanjafora...

Adding a bit to what Don posted, if you can remember what Extension that would be normally loading in at the time it may help in locating the funky Extension.

...Ron

Hi, Felix -

Try a couple of things before re-installing the OS.

Boot with Extensions Off. Then do the following -

• Look in the Servers folder in System Folder - throw away everything that may be in that folder.

• Examine the contents of the Startup Items folder (also in Syatem Folder) - remove anything that does not need to be in there, such as perhaps aliases to registration programs of some kind.

• Then throw away the following preference files, which can be found in the Preferences folder in System Folder -
Finder Preferences
Mac OS Preferences
System Preferences

• Then try a normal restart.

Hi, Felix -

As Ron suggested, can you recall (or note) the extension whose icon is the last to display before the loading hangs?

Hi, Felix -

If it looks like this -

then it is the extension named Apple Audio Extension.

Try starting with Extensions Off, remove that item from the Extensions folder in System Folder, and then try a normal restart.

After removing that extension manually, the next time you open Extensions Manager you'll receive a protest message, advising that one or more items are missing and offering to generate a text file listing tham. Accept that offer, and you'll clear that message.

Jitanjafora...

Any 3rd party software/hardware/drivers? These can involve Extensions as well as Control Panels, along with related Preferences.

I recall Don mentioning things like True Finder Integration (Control Panel (CP) - Stuffit Deluxe) that will stop mine from booting every so often. It isn't so much as the CP itself, but the Preference.

I am not for sure, but Tiger may have inadvertently modified some Preference if such a program will run under either OS.

A Preference tip is they generally are very small in size. One that balloons to several MB more than likely could be corrupt. If your time permits I would pull any suspected Preference in a safe area, such as the Desktop, and reboot.

...Ron