Changed Startup to OS9 on Power Mac G4 MDD FW400 - Stuck with Blinking Question

[snooktarpon]

I just purchased a Power Mac G4 MDD FW400. I purchased this so I can use my OS9 apps to replace my aging PB G3 Wallstreet.

The Mac shipped with OSX Tiger that works great. So I went to Startup Disc in System Preferences and noticed that I could select OS9 on boot. So I thought the G4 was setup to boot to OS9 (or why would the selection be available). Boy was I wrong. So I selected OS9 and reboot and and now I get the disc with the question mark.

I tried pressing every key combination at startup to try getting it to boot back to OSX. FYI, I'm using a PC USB keyboard  so I used this site to know which keys map for the G4: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/keyboard-mappings-using-a-pc-keyboard-on-a-macintosh-d4fd87ca-8762-30ee-fcde-08ffe95faea3).

So I then thought I would insert a bootable OS9 CD. Well, I cannot open the CD drawer. I tried holding the mouse button on boot and nothing. I can open the mirror door but there isn't any hole for a paperclip to open the drawer.

So I'm stuck with the disc with the question mark. Please help!

[FBz]

Try holding down the alt /option key at startup. Hopefully a screen will appear giving you available choices to boot from. (It should also allow you to see if there’s an actual OS 9 partition to boot from.)

And… carefully open the mirrored door (in front of the CD)  and with a flashlight… look closely for the paper clip hole along the bottom edge.

Also… with a Microsoft mouse, left-button-click and hold / at startup, to see if it will eject the CD.

*Don’t tell anyone but, I just attached a MS mouse to this machine! (And just as quickly, disconnected it!)

[GuiBer]

If the alt/option keys with the PC keyboard are not recognised at startup, you could try the key D that allows to boot from the internal HD if the default boot device has been set to something else.

If key D solution doesn’t work, you can try to reset the PMU following these instructions :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7520367
https://www.macrepaircentral.us/power-mac-g4-cube-10-2002/resetting-the-pmu-on-the-logic-board.html

Last solution is to find a friend with a USB Mac keyboard or buy one Good luck !

[snooktarpon]

Unfortunately, holding down the Alt key does nothing at boot up. I've also tried holding down the D, T, control+Alt+O+F with no success.

And holding down the left mouse button does nothing as well.

I did find the small paper clip hole below the CD drive tray. I inserted a paper clip, I then heard a sound from the CD then nothing. I repeated this with the same result. I then tried inserting the paper clip with the power off and that didn't help.

So I've order the Apple Wired Keyboard (A1243) and Apple Pro Mouse on Ebay. They will arrive late next week.

FYI, I haven't tried resetting the PMU.

[FBz]

Once more with feeling…?

With the machine powered down (off). And as above… slowly push the paper clip in until the tray just begins to slightly move open. This doesn’t open the tray all the way - just a little bit. Then hook or grab one side or the other of the tray and slowly / carefully pull it open the rest of the way to enable you to place a disc into the tray.

Then startup the machine and the tray should move itself back into the machine… as you also hold down the “c” key as it’s booting… and it should then boot from the OS 9 installer disc.

*Don’t know why OS 9 appears as a startup choice if isn’t actually available - but once you get it to boot from an OS 9 installer disk, the option of dual partitioning your HD (one for OS 9 & the other partition for OS X?)… you’ll have that decision to consider.

Was the HD already dual-partitioned? OR… more than one HD present inside? Hopefully with the Apple keyboard and mouse, things shall become easier (eventually).

[snooktarpon]

I just decided to remove the CD drive and get access to the eject button which works!

Unfortunately, the only bootable OS9 CD I have is 9.0 and it will not boot. I get a system error stating "unimplemented trap". So I'm pretty sure I need OS9.2 boot disc.

The G4 I purchased didn't come with any system discs. I'm going to use my old iMac and create the system discs from this thread:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=3266.0

I'm guessing the hard drive was NOT dual partitioned. I'm surprised OSX allows you to try to boot to a OS9 partition in the Startup Disc if there isn't an OS9 partition. Apple usually doesn't allow you get into this kind of trouble IMO.

So my plan is the following:
1) Get the hard drive back to boot from OSX Tiger
2) Remote the hard drive replace it with another. I have a old Seagate Barracude 7200.8 Ultra ATA 250GB drive. Then set up the Seagate for dual partitions so I can boot from OS9.2 or OSX.
    Quick questions: Will the G4 System Disc allow me to format the Seagate hard drive? It's currently formatted for Windows NTFS.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

[FBz]

If you’ve another HD, why not install it on the same ATA cable (its’ jumpers set as “Cable Select”) and download the smaller 9.2.2 Universal Install http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html or either version of MacTron’s Bootable Rescue CD http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,3176.0.html ? (Use Drive Setup 2.1 for formatting / partitioning.) Both are smaller & quicker downloads and will allow you to be up and running OS 9.2.2 faster on your second HD! Later you can download the MDD Restore System Disk set and attempt that installation in perhaps a more leisurely fashion. AND you can keep your current version of Tiger intact on the original HD and then maybe figure out the OS 9 boot option “appearance” on that drive too.

*MDD Restore System Disk set installs Panther OS 10.2 and MDDs originally shipped with 9.2.2 which is why 9.0 won’t work.

You might also consider a new SSD w/ adapter instead of the other “spinning platter” HD for a slight performance boost - with lower internal temperatures and less strain on your PSU. Really, a very inexpensive option.

And yes, all three of the downloads mentioned above should allow you to reformat (and partition) the Seagate.

[snooktarpon]

I made some progress but still need some help.. I still cannot access my original OSX Tiger hard drive.

Here is what has happened since my last post:
- I took FBz's advice and created a 9.2.2 universal install disc from this forum.
- I connected the 2nd hard drive (Seagate) using the same ribbon cable connected to the OSX Tiger Hard. I set the Seagate jumper to "cable select".
- I was able to successfully boot off the 9.2.2 install disc. I used Drive Setup and formatted the Seagate into 2 partitions and installed OS9.2 on partition 1.
- I rebooted. The G4 now shows the disc with the question mark for about 20 seconds and then the happy mac icon shows up, and then it boots from partition 1 on the Seagate (now called MacOS9Lives).

So now I want to boot back to the original OSX Tiger hard drive. I noticed the OSX Tiger hard drive was shown as "not mounted" when I ran Drive Setup to initialize the Seagate (and it still shows "not mounted" after installing OS9.2).
So when I go to the OS9's Startup Disk, the OSX Tiger hard drive is not listed. I've attached a screenshot showing the Drive Setup and Startup Disk from OS9.2.

FYI, both hard drives have their jumpers set to "cable select".

So did I permanently lose my OSX Tiger hard drive by selecting the OS9 partition in the OSX's Startup Disk which I'm guessing didn't exist?

FYI, in addition the the MacOS9Lives 9.2 install disc, I did burn all 6 "original" install discs. So I'm wondering if I need to start over with the those discs. Ugh!!!!

[FBz]

Mac keyboard and mouse yet?

(1).The old option-key boot... to see if original drive shows up.

(2). And maybe a PRAM zap.
*Boot while holding down: option - command & p & r keys
and holding all four keys down until 2-3 startup bongs are heard.
Then release.

If you're still on MS keyboard, could be difficult.

Annnnd, you might try booting from the 1st installer disk (of the 6-disc set) only to see if it will boot from that installer. (I’ve a real horror story to point you to, if it doesn’t boot from that disc.) Hopefully it will boot from that disc.

[snooktarpon]

Yes, still using MS keyboard. The mac keyboard and mouse will not arrive for 1 week.

Question: Why would having a MS keyboard make the OSX Tiger hard drive not show up in the OS9's Startup Disk utility?

[FBz]

Question: Why would having a MS keyboard make the OSX Tiger hard drive not show up in the OS9's Startup Disk utility?

Not what I meant. It was in reference to all Mac-specific keystroke combinations mentioned.
BUT, strange things have been known to happen with MS keyboards (and mice) on some Macs.

[snooktarpon]

I finally got it to boot from the Tiger hard disk!

I took FBz' recommendation and booted from the 1st installer disc of the 6 disc set and was able to change the startup disk to the original OSX Tiger hard drive. Holding down the "c" on boot unfortunately doesn't work from my MS keyboard so I had to select the installer disc from OS9's startup disk utility. What a pain!

So hopefully changing between my OSX and OS9 hard drives will be easy after I get my Apple keyboard.

So thank you FBz for all your help!!!

[snooktarpon]

Now that I'm back with OS X Tiger, I've attached a screen shot of Startup Disk utility and the top level folder view of the OS X Tiger hard drive (called Macintosh HD).

As you can from the Startup Disk, I have 4 four choices to boot from:
1) Mac OS X 10.4.1 on Macintosh HD
2) Mac OS 9.2.2 on Macintosh HD
3) Mac OS 9.2.2 on MacOS9Lives
4) Network Startup

What got me into this mess was selecting #2. As you can see, there is not a separate partition for OS9. So is OS 9 System Folder and OS 9 Applications on the Macintosh HD just for Classic mode and not for booting?

So why does the Startup Disk list Mac OS 9.2.2 on Macintosh HD if it cannot boot from it?

How do I fix this so if I select Mac OS 9.2.2 on Macintosh HD it will boot and not give the disc with the question mark?

[GuiBer]

it is correct you see and can select the Mac OS 9.2.2 on Macintosh HD as probably when Tiger was installed Mac OS 9.2.2 was installed too.
The problem you can't start from it can be as some system files are corrupted or the folder doesn’t contain all needed files.
From Tiger, open the System Folder (the one with a 9 on it) : does it contain the files System, Finder, Mac OS ROM and many other ?

Now, if you can boot Mac OS 9.2.2 with the partition or disk MacOS9Lives, you can do this :

boot Tiger or Mac OS 9.2.2 on MacOS9Lives; open the System Folder on Macintosh HD; select all files and trash them; empty the trash and open the System Folder on MacOS9Lives; select all files and drag them in the System Folder of Macintosh HD to copy them; close and reopen the System Folder on Macintosh HD to ‘bless’ the folder.
Test if everything is ok launching OS 9 from Tiger (you find the option in System Preferences) and open ‘SimpleText’ from the folder ‘Applications (Mac Os 9)’.
If all works, now you could boot Mac OS 9.2.2 from Macintosh HD too.

Let us know

[ovalking]

Does 'Macintosh HD' have OS9 drivers installed?
This option has to be selected when a HD is formatted in OS X.
If not, no OS9 drivers, and OS 9 will completely ignore that HD. This matches your symptoms...
The drivers can not be retrospectively added - the HD must be reformatted.

[snooktarpon]

I just read another post last night stating exactly what ovalking stated.

The OS X drive was not formatted/configured by me so I'm assuming that the HD didn't have OS9 drivers installed.. I don't have any data on the drive so I'll just reformat it.

Thank you!

[DieHard]

Hate to complicate an already thick mess, but it should be at least noted...

Creating a dual Booting Mac OS X (Panther,Tiger) and Mac OS 9 G4 Tower is best done by...

(2) drives with Mac OS X on one and Mac OS 9 on the other...

In OS X, Remember to turn off Spotlight for the OS 9 Drive/volumes by adding them to an exclusion list in privacy.  Also prevent any other OS X apps like time machine (In 10.5) from even accessing the OS 9 volumes or you may cause OS 9 file system errors that occur from OS X writing info to OS 9 volumes that OS 9 cannot recognize (this will be evident when you re-boot to Mac OS 9 and run First Aid); you can read the many posts explaining all of this on the forum, just search...

[teroyk]

Creating a dual Booting Mac OS X (Panther,Tiger) and Mac OS 9 G4 Tower is best done by...
(2) drives with Mac OS X on one and Mac OS 9 on the other...
In OS X, Remember to turn off Spotlight for the OS 9 Drive/volumes by adding them to an exclusion list in privacy.

Or make more partitions to one disk. You can make even six booting.
And OS X, you can disable Spotlight and use EasyFind.

[DieHard]

Or make more partitions to one disk. You can make even six booting.
And OS X, you can disable Spotlight and use EasyFind.

Very True   But in a "data recovery" scenario when drives don't always work well, it's better to use (2) physically different drives, one per each OS for recovery tools; also drive imagining/cloning is less complicated... just an opinion

[snooktarpon]

Well I received my Mac keyboard and holding down the option key in OS X and OS 9.2 brings me to the hard drive boot screen. So I'm all set.

Thank you everyone for helping!