Still not using it as day to day machine

[Mat]

I am a die hard 9 user. It is my main system and I refuse to use newer Mac Operating Systems or win, and do not get along with Linux. So I am at Mac OS 9 and as it seems will stay until my last 9-bootable computer falls apart

Several months ago I got my MDD. I had to struggle for weeks to find a nice 9 user who helped me with that special 9.2.2 version that is needed for the MDDs. No other Mac os 9.x version worked, just the one delivered with tha machines, and all apple dealers had no chance to get me a replacement CD/DVD.

Beside this special 9 version I had a few more issues. For exampple I still cannot use the fastes IDE bus with Mac OS 9. Just the 66 MHz IDE and the 33 MHz is usable with 9 directly. But using the 100 MHz one is impossible. No HD is recognised.

Such limitations make me unsure and I am still using my 9600 with G4/800 as day to day machine. I feel somehow uncertain with that - but it

[DieHard]

I explained in my site www.macos9lives.com that The famous MDD 1.25 and Dual 1.25 (2003 with FW400) are bootable Mac 9.2.2.

There are Several Ways to go about installing 9.2.2 on them; my initial method to create a purely OS 9 MDD without OS X whatsoever was

1) I used the original CDs (I believe the ISO images are on Macintosh Garden, If they are gone, let me know and I will Image them and upload them)... the original CDs will Install OS X and OS 9.2.2...

2) I then would reboot holding the Alt (option) key and boot directly to 9.2.2... NOT Classic Mode, Directly to 9.2.2

3) now the fun part.... I would take a cheap external FW drive from ebay (20 GB to 100 GB) and format it exclusively in OS 9 (via Drive Setup Utility) and copy the 3 fresh OS 9 Folders (System, Applications, & Documents) to the Root of the external drive and another full copy of all 3 folders to a folder called "OS 9 Fresh Install" that I created on the FW Drive

NOTE: DO NOT attempt to access the external FW drive via OS X or even Mount it... OS X will eventually write hidden info to the external Drive that OS 9 will not understand and you will eventually get all sorts of BTree errors when running OS 9 First aid on it, this is why I no longer create Dual Boot OS X and OS 9 G4s, having OS X (even on another partition) will eventually fuck something up... for those of you that have been running dual boot stuff for years... run a few OS 9 utilities (when booting directly to OS 9 and you will see that OS X will eventually create file system errors on the OS 9 partition when running these utilities...my suggestion is to simply have another machine if you want OS X and share data via ethernet of flash drive (Formatted fat 32); but please don't poison the FW drive

4) Reboot again with alt key and choose to boot to the FW drive, run the disk utility and wipe out the internal HD (if it is bigger that 190GB) create several 190GB partitions as that is the max limit that will repair and defrag correctly later... I have used 500GB Drives on the ATA/100 IDE Bus with no issues whatsoever

5) Now (without re-booting), drag the 3 folders (System,Applications, & Documents) from the FW "OS 9 Fresh Install" to the root of the freshly partitioned internal HD and you now have a pure OS 9 G4

6) Reboot with alt and pick the internal Hard drive

Notes: the external FireWire HD can be used to re-install at anytime you want and you will never need the MDD CDs again (unless your FW drive dies), also it is a good idea to to create a "Library" partition and make yet another copy of the "Fresh OS 9 Install" folder and any other software installs you want to save; you can drag the System folder (with a copy of Norton 6.0.3 defrag and disk first aid) to other partitions so that you can perform repairs and maintenance on you boot volume by temporarily booting to another internal volume;  I strongly recommend a FW400 hard drive as USB is out of the question (due to the USB 1.1 OS 9 software limitation it would be too slow)

I have installed OS 9.2.2 in about 5 minutes to other G4s.... Powerbook G4s, Cubes, DAs and quicksilvers using the OS 9 Fresh install created from a MDD 2003 1.25 and had no issues, even if the QS or DA uses a different Video card you can simple go into the extensions manager and uncheck any un-needed hardware drivers... for example if you use this method to create a bootable QS G4 that has an nVidia graphics card, you simply uncheck all ATI references in the extensions manager

- Jerry

[Mat]

Thanks for that nice "HowTo". Thanks as well for the upload offer, but I would need a german OS 9.2.2

The issue with my MDD is, no HardDisk at the ATA100 bus is recognised from within Mac OS 9.2.2 (the special MDD version). It doesn

[DieHard]

I still own several MDD 1.25 Ghz. MDDs and None have the 100/ATA bus issue you are describing; Make sure the drives are jumpered "Cable Select"  Especially if it is a Western Digital that has the famous "No Jumper" makes it a Master if no slave is present.  Make sure there is a CS jumper installed... Maybe your ATA/100 Bus has a hardware issue... 2 out of my 4 MDDs have 4 hard drives installed with no issues, 2 on the ata/66 (I use to backup) and 2 on the ATA/100.... 

Even in the old days, I used to put (3) hard drives in QS Towers, (2) on the main controller and one under the CD-ROM in the Zip drive cage... so your "limited to 2 drives" scenario does not sound right.

[MacTron]

Make sure you're using Mac Os ROM version 9.7 ad up (10.1 or 10.2 better) because Mac Os ROM prior to 9.7 don't have drivers for ATA 100

[Mat]

So you agree that Mac OS 9 alone has no support for onboard ATA100, right? Why does DieHard have no problems then, ... ? Thats strange.

Is it a good idea to mix up Classic and Mac OS 9 stuff? Ususally I had many many problems with Classic (no booting 9 partitions any more, totally unstable native 9 after a Classic usage, ...) so that I kicked every X even at the bigger machines like the upgraded 1,4 GHz and the MDDs, as I didn

[DieHard]

Just Checked (3) of my MDD 1.25 Units and (1) QS 933 I am using the following drives with absolutely no issues

(3) Seagate ST3400832A 400GB UDMA/100 7200RPM 8MB IDE Hard Drive

(4) Western Digital WD Blue WD5000AAKB 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100

I also Use SSD Drives 128GB  (Mecury elite from OWC) as my OS 9 Boot and Current project  Drives in 2 other MDDs and OS 9 Boots (From Logo to desktop) in 11 seconds

[DieHard]

Forgot to add....

1) MAC OS 9 ROM file version 10.2.1

2) No versions of OS X is on any of these machines whatsoever

[Mat]

Ahh, so I misunderstood MacTron. I thought he is advising me to use Mac Os ROM version 9.7 ad up FROM Mac OS 10.1 or 10.2.
I don

[DieHard]

I am guessing your Logic board has some issue with its ATA/100 onboard controller (although I am confused that it would work under Linux); The drives I mentioned previously are all ATA/100 PATA Interface; the SSD provided by OWC for G4 Power macs is a 2.5" SATA SSD that is bundled with a SATA to IDE interface and a tray... it goes into a G4 in about 5 min and is incredible. The link is below...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMXLE120/

If you want I can Stuff my "OS 9.2.2" Drag install into a single file and put it avail for download.... you can then copy it to a FW drive and boot up via FW (hold alt option key) and see if you can partition your internal ATA/100 drive and copy the folders to it and reboot to the ATA/100 drive.

[artphotodude]

I have a 2003 MDD (last one) that I've put the 1.42 GHz Dual CPU in and it ROCKS.  Am using the ATA100 bus with no problems.  I really wonder if your PRAM needs zapping.  I've had LOTS of problems with drives when PRAM/PMU gets pissy.  Also, contrary to what the other user said, have run dual partitions of OSX/OS9 (not Classic) and OS9 is fine.  I just remember to keep a minimal 2nd OS9 rescue partition on a separate build just for doing a proper classic Disk Utility when needed, rather than OSX's.

[supernova777]

on the subject of hard drives i just ordered 2 x PCI sata hard drive adapters from a guy i met off the 68kmla site and i have yet to test them (im about to) but they are supposed to be silicon image satalink cards that have had the flash ram reprogrammed to be mac bootable in all g3/g4/g5 powermacs. the cards themself have the two seperate notches on the bottom which denotes pci-x compatibilty with g5 powermacs. anyway they should perform exactly like my tempo sonnet card providing me 2 sata ports for hard drives but most importantly use of these cards allows to bypass completely the ata buss of the these old powermacs to hopefully achieve better disk access speeds + also support a raid pair under osx.
i paid 20$ per card and if they work as promised (and im pretty positive they will) i am extremely happy about the deal;)