MDD FW400 mouse issues

[old_man_bubs]

Hi all,

I'm having a weird issue with my OS 9 installation. I'm using a dual 1.25 FW400 MDD Power Mac G4 (with a 120GB Kingston A400 SSD and a SATA-IDE adaptor), and have OS X 10.4.11 installed on my first partition.
When I installed OS X, I made sure to have a second partition that wasn't journaled, and I also made sure to install the OS 9 disk drivers. I then burned a CD using the image available at this post: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html

Upon booting that CD, my mouse (which is just some bundled Lenovo PC mouse I had spare) will slowly drop to the bottom of the screen any time I move it. What's weird is that the mouse works totally fine when I boot and disable extensions. Unfortunately, I'm a total newbie, so I wouldn't have a clue which extensions to uninstall, nor how to uninstall them (especially considering I need to boot without extensions to do anything with my mouse, and booting without extensions meant I couldn't get into the extension manager!).

Alternatively, is there an OS 9 image fit for my Mac without any extensions so I could have a barebones install and then install extensions later?

As a couple of side notes, when installing OS 9 with the CD, the checksum failed. It still boots completely fine, though. Also, when booting with extensions disabled and trying to fiddle with USB Overdrive settings in the Control Panels, every time I closed the settings window I got an error related to my volume being locked. Not sure if that's indicative of anything.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[IIO]

if your MDD can natively boot OS9, you dont have to use the "universal", you could use the apple installer.

however the universal should work on that machine. i am using a "universal" in a quicksilver with zero issues. with a bunch of this party exensions, including USB OD.

there is no such thing as a barebone install - it would be what you get when booting without extensions. the extension set controlpanel could be useful to disable stuff one by one in order to find buggy parts.

no idea about the disk and mouseproblem you see.

[old_man_bubs]

the extension set controlpanel could be useful to disable stuff one by one in order to find buggy parts.

For what it’s worth, the universal install does work, it may be my mouse that’s causing issues. Is there any way to have access to the extension manager when booting with extensions disabled (i.e.: holding the Shift key)? If I could do that, I could definitely trial-and-error what’s messing things up.

[Europa]

For what it’s worth, the universal install does work, it may be my mouse that’s causing issues. Is there any way to have access to the extension manager when booting with extensions disabled (i.e.: holding the Shift key)? If I could do that, I could definitely trial-and-error what’s messing things up.

Not that I know of. You could if you used Conflict Catcher, but I don't think the Universal ISO has it.

It could be USB OverDrive causing issues. I had to set the mouse speed to a preference other than "System" to get my Logitech mouse to work on my iBook.

[GaryN]

Europa is correct……… BUT there's more !
You either have a conflict between the Mac mouse Control Panel and USB Overdrive  OR………
MouseKeys or some other such assistive app is turned on (and shouldn't be) in System Preferences/Accessibility/Mouse & Trackpad

Since starting with Extensions OFF cures the symptom, it's probably the former.

[old_man_bubs]

One last question, then I’ll be good to try and see what’s going on.
I can’t edit USB OD’s settings when booting with extensions disabled (I open the window, edit, close, get an error about volume lock, then when I reopen the window, no settings have changed).

Is there a way to uninstall USB Overdrive manually, seeing as I can’t use Extension Manager when booting with them disabled?

[alexfree]

IMO the universal install should not come with USB overdrive installed to the ISO itself. I couldn’t use a real CD to install OS 9 since my keyboard had the above issue Europa said. Had to drag n drop everything from OS X.

I did end up using a different mouse to apply the fix mentioned above.

[ovalking]

Hold down space when you boot up - the Extensions Manager (EM) loads early in the process and allows manipulation for that boot.

It's not actually necessary to use EM to manage your extensions and control panels - it just makes the job easier.
In your System folder you will find 'Extensions' & 'Extensions (Disabled)' folders and 'Control Panels' &
'Control Panels (Disabled)' folders.
Turning an item off in EM merely moves it to the relavent disabled folder.
The disadvantage with doing it manually is that it can confuse the EM the next time it is used - some error messages may appear as the files are not where the EM expected!

[Europa]

Hold down space when you boot up - the Extensions Manager (EM) loads early in the process and allows manipulation for that boot.

Ah! I've been using CC for so long I forgot how to use EM! 

[old_man_bubs]

Success, folks! Thank you all so much for your help.

Reinstalled, making sure to boot with extensions disabled. Booted the computer into OS 9, holding the space bar (at precisely the right time, which was very, very finicky), and only disabled the USB device driver extension (part of the CPU package).

All good and working now.