I finally got a Digital Audio G4 dual 533mhz, mainly to run OS9 audio production programs. It arrived with 0SX 10.5 on a 160GB Maxtor. I did what I previously accomplished on my G3 iMac, install a 250GB Crucial SSD (recognized as 120GB) and created 2 partitions. Right away things were not doing well due to the fact I could not get the Powermac to boot into OS9 at all. I tried several working OS9 install CDs via the internal DVD drive and 2 FireWire CD drives, a FireWire HDD, Target Disk mode from a G3 iBook. All of the attempts froze during the boot screen with the task bar freezing at about 10%. I started to think there was a new firmware on the motherboard inhibiting OS9, so I installed a fresh copy of 10.4 on a partition of the SSD just to be able to use the Mac. Then, I tried an old hard drive I rescued from a G3 iMac that had dual boot. I installed the drive into the Powermac, and it surprisingly booted to OS9 without any problem. I reformatted the SSD with 2 partitions again without issue. However, whenever I tried to install OS 9 from a CD or img, as soon as it finished and rebooted it was freeze the same way. My solution?
I dragged the System folder from the rescued G3 iMac drive to the SSD. Boom, it boots now, and I was also able to install the 9.2.2 update.
Everything is working just fine now, but I am just curious. Why was the only way to install OS9 to drag the system folder onto the drive. What was halting the boot sequence from CD, Firwire disk, or Target disk? Still this PowerMac refuses to boot into OS9 from any other method than the internal drive I created via dragging. I have never had an issue like this in 20 years of installing OS9 on iMacs, iBooks, and PowerMacs. Anyone have problems booting PowerMac G4s from an OS9 CD?