U.S. to U.K B&W SSD Blues

[FBz]

Suggestions? Explanations? Advice?

(Other than “it’s possessed, throw it into the sea and be done with it.”)

A 128 GB Inland SSD formatted and partitioned within a Quicksilver using OS 9.2.2. / THEN OS 9.2.2 installed on the first partition… Panther on the 2nd and Tiger 10.4.11 on the third partition (Panther & Tiger from Apple retail discs). Then using the same adapter, the SSD was then placed into B&W G3's here (then jumpered as a Master) and individually tested and booted from each partition and OS successfully. (On three different B&W G3s here, all equipped with Rev.2 mobos... repeatedly and without fail.)

Shipped across the big pond to a friend in the U.K. - where he then placed it into his (also) Rev.2 equipped B&W and it boots OS 9.2.2 fine. However, when selecting either Panther or Tiger, his machine chimes and then goes to black screen - no boot. BUT, if he boots from an OS 9.2.2 installer disc AND then selects either Panther or Tiger from that… it boots both without fail.

Then, after ejecting the installer disc from within either OS X flavor… he cannot select and reboot to OS 9.2.2. He can select it, but gets “no-boot” black screen.

Using the same SSD adapter there, as was used here. It’s the only drive on the cable (and jumpered as a Master) AND on the last (black) connector of the two-drive ribbon cable. (No drive present on the gray connector / Slave position.)

Have rebuilt desktops, reset PRAM and any number of combinations and variables (repeatedly) to solve this and so far nothing has worked. (Strange that it worked fine here on three different B&Ws.) What am I missing?

Have seen mentions that there was a firmware upgrade (patch?) for the B&Ws that enabled booting of OS X… and wonder if all here were possibly “upgraded” - while his possibly was not (all those years ago). BUT if the same 9.2.2 installer disc was used to install OS 9.2.2 on the SSD, why is it that only when booted from the install disc, can he only then select and boot from either OS X partition… AND then, cannot reboot to his OS 9.2.2 partition???

It’s a 128 GB SSD - partitioned into three equal (39.73 GB) partitions and it was repeatedly tested and it worked here many times before being shipped.

AND NO, holding down the Option (alt) key at boot, does not offer a selection of partitions or choices of which OS to boot from on these G3 Blue & Whites.

There must be A difference between his machine and mine… other than voltage?

[FBz]

Okay, no quick responses.
Downloaded and attempted the G3_Firmware_Update_1.1.smi
(Already installed, no need to update here.)

AND... as it takes so very long for email to traverse the vast Atlantic Ocean
- it's likely that I'll not hear from the U.K. for some possible length of time.

But I'll attempt to attach the file here, below.

That's weird, looks like a box outline for an image below.
But if you click on the text below that, you can download.

[zefrenchtoon]

Hi!
I think that the box outline is because of the file extension that the board thinks it is an image format.

About G3s ... I have no explanation but if he boots on OSX using the OS9 boot cd trick, maybe he should try to bless them using command line tool ?

I did it on my mini G4 to force it to boot on os9 even if I boot on Tiger sometimes (using option key).

[IIO]

the part when he cant boot back into OS9 after it previously worked makes it really interesting.

[ovalking]

Is there any OS X admin password protection in play that may be interfereing with selection of start-up disk?

Perhaps you should nudge your friend that posting to the forum is allowed from the UK!

[FBz]

ovalking: Interesting idea there… but no. I didn’t set up any passwords for either of those two OS’es - on either of those three partitions. Thank you for the thought!

And funny, he does post here occasionally (in what seems to be something of a 2-3 year cycle), But he’s been going through some personal stuff (like a great many of us these days) and I think it’s likely that I confuse him enough, for us all. Yet I do seriously appreciate any suggestions.

Not an easy task to attempt resurrection of a machine that you’ve not likely booted for nearly 20 years. (Especially perhaps after becoming immersed in the Windows realm for those 20 odd years.)

Think I may have stumbled onto something (again) today concerning double-jumpers on certain drives when used with non-ATA compatible slave. Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and 7200.8 Ultra ATA drives with jumpers set as the following, in conjunction with the SSD set as a slave - seems to work quite well here, back and forth between all OS’es and partitions on both drives (SSD and conventional HD).



Possible problem being… that he’s got a Hitachi 250 GB Deckstar HD that he intends to place it, as a Master underneath the SSD. And I’m uncertain that the Hitachi will provide the same working results of the Seagate with its’ available jumper settings.



*Shown here with jumpers set to DEVICE 1 (SLAVE) / 16 heads.
Guess that more testing is on tap here? (I’m thinking green arrow?)

Thanks to: zefrenchtoon, IIO and ovalking!
AND zefrenchtoon: care to detail that “bless them using command line tool”?

Maybe he can source a U.K. Seagate and we can then move on?

Oh, and then there's the matter of the possible B&W Firmware upgrade too? 

[IIO]

oh yeah, i remeber that day when i once found out that jumper settings can be different for different brands.

[FBz]

oh yeah, i remember that day when i once found out that jumper settings can be different for different brands.

And then, throw a little SSD into the mix.
Shaken, not stirred.

So Deckstar Result = nyet (nope).

Tried it as a Master and then as a Slave (on top of the SSD and I hate that - it just seems wrong). But as a Master, it did boot - but no SSD (or any of its' partitions were mounted). So after that little exercise in futility, figured that the Seagate Ultra ATA drives may now be a Premium for the Blue & Whites (and Quicksilvers?) with an SSD (slave) on top. And all because of that available "Master, with non-ATA compatible slave” option. Know of any other conventional HDs with the same jumper setting option? Let's hear it!

OR some other Deckstar jumper settings should be attempted? (Not me.)

Last week someone was trying the same sort of thing with an SSD and a conventional drive in a Quicksilver and could not get that to work either. (Hear me screamin' all you Quicksilvers?)

Anyway, put the SSD alone (jumped as Master) back into the B&W and zapped the PRAM (3 bongs) and it booted OS 9 from the SSD and ALL of its' partitions mounted. Then selected Tiger as Startup Drive and that booted. Then Panther - the same. And just to tempt the demons... back to OS 9 again, without fail. WHICH now begs the question as to whether or not the U.K. Blue & White has endured that Firmware Update? (Of course, I booted it back into Tiger, after OS 9 again.)

I read somewhere lately, that Apple offered two different firmware updaters for the G3 Blue & Whites - one of them reportedly disabled the ability to install and use a G4 ZIF processor on the Yosemite boards and the other updater did not. (Nice trick, ehh?) As the B&Ws were only available somewhat briefly before the newer G4s were introduced, maybe Apple desired to sell more of the complete G4 machines???

Anyway (my friend in the U.K.) and any of you other rascals out there trying to drag a B&W (or a Quicksilver) into the present day - with an SSD and a conventional drive... better hope you've a certain Seagate HD to add to the mix. AND anyone attempting a G4 ZIF into a B&W... beware the Firmware Updater version that might have been used with your machine.

I think I'm finished here with the B&Ws?
What quirky little machines.

And YUP, used a Bribge EVB-002-3 adapter!
DieHard's got 'em... cheap. PM dat guy.

Oh and here's a Black & White machine, someone mentioned.

[peeperpc]

Suggestions? Explanations? Advice?

(Other than “it’s possessed, throw it into the sea and be done with it.”)

A 128 GB Inland SSD formatted and partitioned within a Quicksilver using OS 9.2.2. / THEN OS 9.2.2 installed on the first partition… Panther on the 2nd and Tiger 10.4.11 on the third partition (Panther & Tiger from Apple retail discs). Then using the same adapter, the SSD was then placed into B&W G3's here (then jumpered as a Master) and individually tested and booted from each partition and OS successfully. (On three different B&W G3s here, all equipped with Rev.2 mobos... repeatedly and without fail.)

Shipped across the big pond to a friend in the U.K. - where he then placed it into his (also) Rev.2 equipped B&W and it boots OS 9.2.2 fine. However, when selecting either Panther or Tiger, his machine chimes and then goes to black screen - no boot. BUT, if he boots from an OS 9.2.2 installer disc AND then selects either Panther or Tiger from that… it boots both without fail.

Then, after ejecting the installer disc from within either OS X flavor… he cannot select and reboot to OS 9.2.2. He can select it, but gets “no-boot” black screen.

Using the same SSD adapter there, as was used here. It’s the only drive on the cable (and jumpered as a Master) AND on the last (black) connector of the two-drive ribbon cable. (No drive present on the gray connector / Slave position.)

Have rebuilt desktops, reset PRAM and any number of combinations and variables (repeatedly) to solve this and so far nothing has worked. (Strange that it worked fine here on three different B&Ws.) What am I missing?

Have seen mentions that there was a firmware upgrade (patch?) for the B&Ws that enabled booting of OS X… and wonder if all here were possibly “upgraded” - while his possibly was not (all those years ago). BUT if the same 9.2.2 installer disc was used to install OS 9.2.2 on the SSD, why is it that only when booted from the install disc, can he only then select and boot from either OS X partition… AND then, cannot reboot to his OS 9.2.2 partition???

It’s a 128 GB SSD - partitioned into three equal (39.73 GB) partitions and it was repeatedly tested and it worked here many times before being shipped.

AND NO, holding down the Option (alt) key at boot, does not offer a selection of partitions or choices of which OS to boot from on these G3 Blue & Whites.

There must be A difference between his machine and mine… other than voltage?

It looks like Startup Disk can be set only when booted from a drive that is not connected to the adapter. I would try replacing the adapter. It might get damaged during the shipping. Or there might be compatibility issue with his PCI cards.


Background: I have a defective EVB-002-3 adapter that doesn't work right (in a different way from your problem) when used as Master in my MDD. The drive connected to it is bootable only in cold boot. When restarted, the Mac will boot from other bootable drive.

So I tried restarting with the Option key pressed. The drive connected to it didn't show up in the Boot Manager, only other drives that had a bootable OS on them. So that's the reason it can't boot from the drive, because it is not available as a bootable drive when restarted.

Then I set that adapter to be Slave and moved it to the Slave location and set another EVB-002-3 (that was used to be Slave) to be Master and everything worked as it should.

[Petros90]

RESOLVED

To clarify the issue, originally -
- will boot into OS9 and either OSX from CD
- will boot into OS9 from either OSX
- will not boot into either OSX from OS9
- zapping P-RAM enables reboot into OS9 without using the CD, which is a benefit, but
- zapping P-RAM and Verifying/repairing has made no difference to the issue

I kept a list as I went along of the stuff I tried, shewn below, following the advice, which helped solidify my train of thought.
Please feel free to skip to the resolution (which has but just one, probably easily-rectifiable glitch):[/font][/size]

(n.b. "OS9 = OS9.2.2)

1.   Download/install/run Firmware update - this reports it is already up to date
2.   Re-seat 4 x RAM cards (video card untouched)
3.   Zap P-RAM (Alt-R + Apple P after Using button to left of Programmer's button to restart and waiting for the 3 chimes before release) (Note - this is a MUCH quicker way than using the install CD to boot into OS9)
4.   Boots into OS9 (Panther previously selected before shutdown previous evening)
5.   Select OSX Tiger in Startup Disk - result = will not boot
6.   Zap P-RAM
7.   Boots into OS9
8.   Select Panther in Startup Disk - result = will not boot
9.   Zap P-RAM
10.   Boots into OS9
11.   Verify OS9 in Disk First Aid - All appears to be OK
12.   Verify OSX Panther in Disk First Aid - All appears to be OK
13.   Verify OSX Tiger in Disk First Aid = "the disk Tiger needs to be repaired" ("Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data ..." (x3 cases) and "Invalid BTree header")
14.   OSX Tiger repaired successfully - re-Verified = "the disk Tiger needs to be repaired"
15.   Repair again - this could go on forever, so -
16.   Select Tiger in Startup Disk - result = will not boot
17.   Zap P-RAM
18.   Boots into OS9
19.   Boot from CD (hold down C after reboot), select Panther
20.   Boots into OSX Panther
21.   Apple menu/System Preferences / Startup Disk / Select Tiger, select Restart
22.   Boots into OSX Tiger
23.   As (21) above, select OS9, select Restart
24.   Boots into OS9, so -
25.   Select Panther in Startup Disk, restart
26.   We have a no-boot situation
27.   Zap etc - boots into OS9

... Blimey O' Reilly ...

This didn't seem like a hardware fault to me. 
ie If OS9 can be booted from my install CD (DieHard's OS9.2.2) on the optical drive (and in fact all partitions can be booted thus) there must be some peculier tiny tiny tiny little piece of code specific to Fury's clone that is making the whole thing hang.
The beauty of OS9 is that it takes minutes to create a valid System - unlike Widows (I remember my aghastness when I learned how to install Windows 2000)

So why don't we just cut out the middleman, and replace the OS9 on the SSD with DieHard's excellent final Last OS9?

Procedure - boot from CD, copy the original SSD OS9 System Folder onto the Panther partition, de-bless just in case, copy the DieHard OS9.2.2 System Folder to the OS9 partition, bless, reboot. The whole thing took minutes.

Now boots from any OS to any OS. The only caveat is that on booting into OS9 a dialog box appears asking for the Install CD.

Interesting stuff. All credit to Fury DeBongo and DieHard!

I think, at some point, someone should recreate this, on another G3 B&W just to double-check that this is in fact the way to do it.
i.e. after the SSD has been created with the all OSs, replace the 9.2 with a fresh copy.

I'm now wondering if now is the time to download DieHard's Cubase 5.1 audio version of OS9.2 which I seem to remember spying somewhere on this site ...
but maybe that's another thread.

I think I should probably make a clone of this SSD.



Are Fury and i Unique in having the only triple-booting OS9/OSX Panther and Tiger G3 B&W in the world?

[Petros90]

BTW  Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread!

[FBz]

The really, really, REALLY odd thing here - is that the very SSD in Petros90’s B&W... is that it performed flawlessly, countless times and in three different G3 Blue and Whites here. And it was no cloned SSD. Each OS was clean-installed direct from CD (and in the case of Panther and Tiger) from original Apple retail installer discs with ALL sequential updates afterwards, to both Panther and Tiger.

It has been an arduous and definite hair-pulling, brain-scratcher. BUT if it’s working well… in the words of the now-immortal, Mr. Poole: “I’m not bothered!”.

Start that damned blessed thing up holding down the option (“alt”) key and the command key together AND rebuild that desktop. Maybe that dialog box asking for the Install CD will go away? Maybe now, even zap PRAM just one more time for luck! Any other suggestions y'all?

I think, at some point, someone should recreate this, on another G3 B&W just to double-check that this is in fact the way to do it.
i.e. after the SSD has been created with the all OSs, replace the 9.2 with a fresh copy.

Have done so here. Created another SSD just as that one was made… after I'd sent your's across the pond. And I’ve "yet" to experience any problems with this SSD in any / every machine that it’s been in since (and I've not had to replace or bless the Sys folder). But Petros90's invitation stands!

Again, Saint’s preserve us all. Hallelujah!

*I know what remaining hardware still lurks in the shadows there.
 Dare ye proceed with that other?

Yes... clone a copy!

[DieHard]

Each OS was clean-installed direct from CD (and in the case of Panther and Tiger) from original Apple retail installer discs with ALL sequential updates afterwards, to both Panther and Tiger.

Ahhhh... and there is the problem.  It is known that the Mactron/Diehard Mac OS 9 has the "magic" hidden file that 1) parses all the system hardware, 2) rebuilds the Open frimware tree and removes any devices that will cause issues and then inserts the devices back with any needed corrections, 3) we then repair and ECC memory error (even without EEC memory in the machine) and lastly 4) we 'bless" not only the system folder, but the user and all peripherals

OK, maybe not, but I would bet some money that all the CD installs and updates to 9.2.2 may still be missing something from our 9.2.2

Mac OS ROM Version 10.2.1, Mac OS CPU Software 5.9 from 04.2003
Graphics Card Updates from 10.2002
"ATI 8500 3D Accelerator" Extension, Version 7.0.7, Mac OS CPU Software 5.9, from 10.2002
"ATI Driver Update" Extension, Version 2.4.4, Mac OS CPU Software 5.9, from 03.2003
"Nvidia 2D Accelerator" Extension, Version 3.5.2, Mac OS CPU Software 5.4