Been a long day so far trying to get my first ever mac (clone) up and running again. I've got a bunch of pre-FCPX project files that were neglected for almost 20 years, that I'm trying to build XML files for to ring them into 2024. FCP doesn't run in vmware. Damn lack of Quartz Extreme. So then the easy way would've been to purchase a 2008-2014 mac mini and just load up FCP7. But in the back of my mind, I've always wanted to get my first computer up and running again. One problem. The HD was pulled decades ago.
It's a Power Computing Powerbase 180 with a Powerlogix G3 350/175, some kind of ATI graphics card and a PCI IDE card. I can't remember the SCSI ever being used, although there was probably something like a 2GB drive in there at some point. Found it at a local thrift back in '99 for $40, (with the system disc in the tray) and booted it up right when I got home.
Been pulling out all the CD's I can find. 7.5.5 system disk that won't load with the G3 in there, 9.2 (and the new 9.2.2 custom beast from this site) which both give the unsupported error. Every version of OS X up to Tiger (trying to get something to boot into Disk Utility). And finally getting somewhere with a newly written copy of 9.1. That one booted right up, but then cannot see the only old school drive I still have. a Samsung 400 GB that was partitioned using my modern mac into 7.4, 197 and 196GB partitions. I just need something to see that first 7.4GB. No dice since I've got no way to get the OS 9 disk drivers on there.
VMware doesn't support anything before 10.5, and I even attempted to load a copy of osx86 10.4.6 on my MBP, but don't really know what I'm doing with that. Been hammering away at it all night and have run out of ideas. I'd put osx86 on my PC if it's the only way to get that impossible to find OS 9 driver checkbox, but doing that in Windows 10 sounds like a whole nother project. Any ideas to get my drive ready for 9.1? Once that's installed, getting up to 9.2.2 and then whatever version of OS X seems like a cakewalk compared to this.
I'm also not sure if the PCI to IDE card is being recognized. If I have to buy an old SCSI drive, so be it. I might even be able to find one that already has the proper drivers still installed. Although I'd rather not go that route. Putting an SSD in there once things are running would be hilarious.