Can a Modern External Drive Boot in OS 9.2.2?

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Glad to know there remains a robust community of Classic users.

I should probably know the answer to this one by now, but don't.
 
I have a 933Mhz Quicksilver 2002 and run Tiger, Leopard and Classic.
Specifically, I have 10.4.11 and 9.2.2 running on the original internal,
and I put 9, 10.4.11 and 10.5.8 on the external. Because I didn't know
better at the time, I made the partition for OS 9 too large – it's 250gb
in size, far outsizing 9's natural limitation. The external is connected via
Firewire 400, the internal is of course a SATA disk.
 
I'm an original owner of said system and have all the original CDs.
It's showing its age in little ways but it's chugging along. People
can't believe I'm still using a 15 year-old machine.
 
I'm in the market for a backup drive as I need to return that external due
to intermittent issues and I'd like to be able to boot from OS 9 or if not that
run Classic, as I have a number of OS 9-native programs. The reason for the
new backup external is simple: I've no other drive large enough to do so.

The sort of drive I have in mind is a 1T. I want to daisychain it via FW 800
once I get the replacement drive from Fantom. The current troublesome
external is a Fantom Green Drive Quad 3T, model #GD300Q. I'm in talks
now with MicroNet.

Basically I decided this backup drive to serve as a clone drive to my internal
disk, the dreaded "DeathStar", as it's now 15 years old. It will die someday,
and it will be necessary to swap the 1T for that disk in an emergency.

According to MicroNet's specs, The Green Drive will boot in Tiger 10.x,
no lower. BUT ... is it possible to put 9 on a size-friendly partition, say
100g, using a Tiger Disk Utility? This Utility MUST be at least 10.2.
As an example of the external's current operation, I cannot see any
of the partitions from The Green Drive while booted from OS 9 on my
internal SATA, but I dunno if it's because I'm using a SATA disk or it's
because the partition I formatted for OS 9 on the external is too large.
I'm betting it's the former. I'm assuming the manufacturer is trying to
tell me something in that, yes, their drive will NOT recognize OS 9.
At all. From what I can tell, that's not true.

Again, I realize that OS 9.2.2 has limitations as to the size of the drive/
partition being limited to 200g if installed via Disk Utility OS X 10.2; or,
128g if using an installer that's lower or whatever.
 
System Profiler says the OS 9 drivers are on that partition, but that does
not mean I can boot OS 9 from it, as it can't because of my mistake.
 
It says:
 
  HDD SBP-LUN:
  Capacity:    2.73 TB
  Removable Media:    Yes
  BSD Name:    disk1
  Mac OS 9 Drivers:    Yes
 
 
But, in theory, if all that criterion is satisfied, I should be able to boot
off just about any external drive, correct? I add it's less important to
boot OS 9.2.2 itself, rather just access those programs via Classic.
I reason all I'd have to do is format/partition the external in Tiger,
get the OS 9 drivers, partition as instructed above using the 200/128g
limit using APM mapping, and I should be good, correct?

What is the proper procedure to get 9 to boot off a modern external,
other than that installer/partition schema above?
 
More info:
 
Internal: Original IBM SATA disk, 60g capacity, running Tiger 10.4.11/
Classic/OS 9.2.2*
 
*Mac OS Rom ver 9.0.1
 
External: Fantom Green Drive Quad 3T/Firewire 400
 
Partions:
1) OS 9.2.2, 250g capacity ( WRONG as noted above )
2) OS 10.4.11, 1.5T capacity
3) OS 10.5.8, 1T capacity
 

Thoughts?
 
Thanks.

[GaryN]

Lots to unpack here…
#1 confusing point: Your internal is not SATA. It's just plain 'ol ATA (or PATA).

Now, you've got a lot going on for unclear reasons. You want to use a huge 1T external drive as a backup because you're expecting the IBM internal to blow up soon.  If it does, you're going to have to replace it. Why don't you just buy a backup internal now and keep it until it's needed? They're dirt cheap. You can then partition your external drive part as a backup drive for the internal and part as data storage, if needed.

The reason you can't boot 9 from the external is probably exactly what you've already deduced: you need a smaller OS9 partition. However, I repeat: why do you need to boot OS9 from the external anyway? If the internal fails, you'll probably boot OSX to restore from your backup onto a new internal drive.

Also, (this may have been a typo, but) you cannot "daisychain" anything via FW 800 on a Quicksilver. The best you could do would be using a FW 400-to-800 adapter which has a 50-50 chance of working to get the drive to run at FW 400 speed and will not (short of a miracle) boot OS9 over that connection anyway.

Although it's difficult to really tell any more from here, I think you may need to just start over and reassess what you really want and need to do. Then acquire whatever hardware is really best suited for that. While there are no "laws" that dictate how your system must be configured, general practice usually keeps apps and much-accessed data inside the computer - sometimes on more than one drive - and keeps backup and big overflow data outside.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Hi and thanks for the reply, Gary!

Why such a big drive and why boot 9 off it? Trying to get the most out of one solution.

1. Clone original drive. It's not essential to boot from 9, just the ability to use Classic programs.
2. A backup for the 3T drive which needs service. I can't backup now with what I've got.

Correction: ATA internal. Noted. Confusing.

Good Point on the FireWire exchange. Forgot that the Quicksilver 2002 predates 800. Was going to connect the 3T to the 1T using 800 because there's two 800 ports, one USB 2, and only ONE 400 port. Figures. Naturally that one port connects to the Quicksilver.

[GaryN]

Why such a big drive and why boot 9 off it? Trying to get the most out of one solution.

Well, you can make that work. Just partition it as needed and keep the OS9 volume under 128.

Was going to connect the 3T to the 1T using 800 because there's two 800 ports,

That sounds like one of those things that certainly should work, but who knows?

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Thank You, Gary!

 

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

The drive has been ordered, I'll let you know what happens.

 

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

 

Got the 1T drive yesterday. Didn't work.

I daisychained it via the 800 FW port:

QuickSilver 2002 ------> FW 400 ------> Fantom 3T
FW 800 ------> Fantom 1T


Used Tiger's DU to partition the 9/Classic/Tiger disk as an 80g drive;
the remainder for data dumping. Created via the PPC Apple Partition Map
and installed the OS 9 Drivers.

Booted via the QuickSilver's OS 9 Install disk, no problems, then continued
using the original Tiger Install disk to install that OS.

Tried to boot in small partition, not happenin'.

Blessed 9's System; no logo. Didn't bless.

Switched FW ports to daisychain the externals. No difference; still won't boot in OS 9.

Next Up: Will try again using Software Restore disks that came with the QuickSilver.

I suspect it's a chip incompatibility issue.

[GaryN]

>> This is not making sense. You should actually be able to just boot Tiger then even just drag copy the OS9 files from either CD or disk image onto your 80Gb volume and it should work - period.

>> If it won't bless, it won't boot. Keep trying until it does.

>> As I suspected, daisy-chaining the drives was a long shot. SCSI it ain't.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Agreed, Gary. Ain't givin' up just yet!

But if it comes to it, no biggie ... just turn the new Fantom into a data dump
and skip all the rest. The world will keep turning.

 

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Thought – SheepShaver? I have no history with it.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

... just messed around trying to boot using the newer ROM files – Nope.

[GaryN]

Sheepshaver sucks. You use it only if you only have an Intel machine and you must run OS9 for something.

Again, IMPORTANT: No bless, NO BOOT. This is very probably what's up here.

How are you trying to bless the System? the time-honored way is to drag the System and the Finder files out of the System Folder onto the desktop, click somewhere to deselect them for a sec, then put them back in the System Folder. That should cause the folder icon to change and you're good to go.

If you can't get this to happen, nothing else will make it boot.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Yup, tried that; one of the first things I did. Forcing it using
the "sudo" line is not something I want to try.

I'm probably looking at Plan B.

[GaryN]

Here's a plan C you can try. You'll have to unzip and run it in OS9 - Tiger Classic should work (I think).

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

I can probably do that on the original backup but not this new one.
The new one supports Leopard up, unfortunately.

The vendor has on its website a utility called "SteelVine Manager",
but that only makes it possible to see files from Tiger on up running
Snow Leopard. Not really my problem. Further, this utility only runs
on USB 1+2 and SATA. SATA is fine but I don't have a card and,
guess what, the vendor's site has dead links! Whoops. So, THAT's
a non-starter as well.

Strange. I thought I'd be able to defeat those built-in security features,
but it seems insurmountable, to use a pun.

 

[GaryN]

No CD drive in there? You could boot OS9 from a disc to run the bless app. You'll find that often with an "old" OS, the solutions are in a form that just assumes you have a CD-ROM drive, because almost all home computers did and that's the way everything was distributed then.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Gary, thanks for being patient with this old crow.

You got it, SuperDrive here. Plus an old Zip 100mg
internal drive. Barely use the latter.

I suspect this is a universal problem for all 9 stalwarts.

There's a "blessing app" contained within 9? News to me.
What is it? Where is it? Thanks.

Here's the setup again, rechained to improve fortunes:

QuickSilver 2002 ------> FW 400 ------> Fantom 1T
FW 800 ------> Fantom 3T

3T: Boots from Tiger up. 3 partitions: 2 Leopard, 1 Tiger.
This I've owned for 2yrs. Some issues booting one partition
which is why I may return it to Fantom under warranty.

1T: Boots from Leopard up. 2 partitions: 9 and Tiger.
Bought this last week to back up the 3T AND act as a
clone for the QuickSilver 2002. I realize the issues
between FW, USB, chips and whatnot, just seeing
if I can force 9 to boot on a modern FW external.

Curiosities: So, here's the odd thing. I boot off my 9 Installer
that came with the Mac ( ca Summer '02, LoL ) and take a look
with Drive Setup, the precursor to Disk Utility. Now ... I already
installed 9 drivers via the OS X 1.3 Puma Installer disk that came
with the Mac. It takes a longer time, but these two new partitions
off the 1T mount. Good. BUT it's one thing to mount a drive, quite
another to boot off one. So far in past experiments, just as MicroNet
warned, neither partition on the 1T will boot 9 or Tiger. But they do
mount under 9. I didn't think they could do that much.

However, tellingly, in Drive Setup, it says the FW drive, while it mounts,
is "unsupported". Hmmm. So my guess is there's only two more things
to try: the sudo line command or trying to defeat the security level
in the chip on the 1T. If someone's running 9 in this day and age,
they've pretty much forfeited the security option anyway.

[TheDailyBuzzherd]

Just for giggles, I've been in Terminal twice at the Tiger level.

My commands are in red.
 
sudo bless -folder9 "/Volumes/Hard Drive/System Folder" -bootBlockFile
bless: option `-bootBlockFile' requires an argument
Usage: bless [options]
bless --help

bless --folder directory [--file file]
        [--bootinfo [file]] [--bootefi [file]]
        [--setBoot] [--openfolder directory] [--verbose]

bless --mount directory [--file file] [--setBoot] [--verbose]

bless --device device [--setBoot] [--verbose]

bless --netboot --server url [--verbose]

bless --info [directory] [--getBoot] [--plist] [--verbose] [--version]
Hard-Drive:~ owner$ "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"
-bash: /usr/share/misc/bootblockdata: Permission denied


I wonder if I log in as root then I'll have access.

To try later.

[IIO]

mac os 9 boots from everything, usb (including sticks), firewire, ide, scsi ... and it boots from any location (including the trash), and you also may rename the system folder (and most of the items in it) as you like.

the only important exception is the majority of SATA cards - so watch out here.

[IIO]

as it's now 15 years old

throw it away as soon as you can!

IDE harddrives from these days are producing 60% of the noise of this computer. IDE disks which are 8-10 years old will produce zero noise and are twice as fast. (and they are even more reliable than most cheap new sata disks.)