In the past, I somehow made hard drives that were larger than system 9 would allow, but formatting them, on an X computer, into partitions that were small enoug.
This worked.
But, I just tried the same thing with a new drive I bought (ion box new G drive). It has 2 TB, so I divided it up into 8 partitions...but it won't show up on my G4 running 9. Anyone know how to get around this..there are a lot of formatting initializing options, and I'm not sure which is the best.

2 TB divided by 8 for 8 partitions total, if evenly-sized, means 256 GB per partition. But the absolute limit to boot a Mac OS 9.2.2 partition with the latest Mac OS 10.2.1 ROM file is 190 GB (or was it 189 GB? 180 GB? I get these 3 values mixed up.)

Just make sure to keep one of your 8 partitions a bit smaller to get under that limit. Personally, I use 30 GB as my Mac OS 9.2.2 booting partition, whereas ALL the rest goes into a 2nd partition containing any file that does not need to reside in the Mac OS partition. That 2nd partition can be ANY SIZE that is below 2 TB, Mac OS 9.2.2 can use it fully and perfectly once the OS is booted.

... Now this begs the question... How do we hack around the 10.2.1 ROM so that we can boot from partitions bigger than 190 GB... And from drives whose partition map is bigger than 2 TB...? It must be rather an attainable goal, probably much easier than reaching 2 GB max RAM...

Method #1…

1) From the HP support site, get the "generic Postscript driver" and install it into the printer.
2) Load up the Mac Laserwriter 8 driver into the computer. If you don't have it, get it from MacGarden.
3) Now, connect the computer to the printer with a USB cable. Sorry, no EZ Wi-Fi printing in OS9.
*Since you didn't specify exactly which G4 you have, you might not have a USB port on the G4. If so: Find (on ebay probably) a USB2 PCI card to add one. Note it will be seen as and will operate at USB1 speed only in OS9.
4) Spit into the wind, chant Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and see if it works.

Method #2

1) Add OSX to the G4… either 10.4 or 10.5
2) Do steps #1 and #2 above.
3a) If you don't have an Airport card, find one and install it in the G4. (That would be the original Airport - may be hard to find). OR……
3b) If it's not already, connect the G4 to your router with an Ethernet cable. (Much easier)
Now you can print anything from either OS using OSX. Yes, OS9 printing will require a reboot. No big deal if it's only occasional printing. If you need it a lot, Method #1 is the better way to go.

Disclaimer: It's late and I'm still up. I'm 90% sure I got all of the above correct……

I have a newer printer, that I use with myMac Studio.
HP M501.
When I've tried to add to my 9.2 running G4, it won't show up at all.
Is there some way to get around to this.
I still have my HP 5100 that runs in 9, and it's great, but it was built in 2007 and I worry about wearing it out. I would love to be able to use it for only when I'm printing scores on 11 X 17 paper, which I only do a little of, and doing everything else on the newer printer, as to avoid putting too much wear and tear on the old one.

In the past, I somehow made hard drives that were larger than system 9 would allow, but formatting them, on an X computer, into partitions that were small enoug.
This worked.
But, I just tried the same thing with a new drive I bought (ion box new G drive). It has 2 TB, so I divided it up into 8 partitions...but it won't show up on my G4 running 9. Anyone know how to get around this..there are a lot of formatting initializing options, and I'm not sure which is the best.

@Steve_W

You’re having us on just a bit about “sunny” Margate? (I checked current weather.)

Appreciate you documenting your upcoming journey with the 1.33 GHz Mac mini.
(Hope that it works out, as it could be quite interesting.)

And, btw nice to see that avi of yours popping up again after so long.
(Last post from you was September of 2022.)

Laissez les bons temps rouler! 

@ragerknight

As I understand it (from last week)... currently, files are being moved to a different server / host.
In the meantime... you might try https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-mini-g4-macos-92-v9

 

Just registered to the site, want to bring back the magic to a Mini... Can't access the download, is there a time that I have to wait before downloading? Have the day off of work today and this seems like a totally cool thing to do today.

Cheers.

Sadly the 9Lives discs have become difficult to obtain.

Just registered to the site, want to bring back the magic to a Mini... Can't access the download, is there a time that I have to wait before downloading? Have the day off of work today and this seems like a totally cool thing to do today.

Cheers.

Morning all from sunny Margate, Kent, UK. I’ve been making music with Macs since mid 90s (Spectrum and Amiga before my Mac journey). I bought the holy trinity of Rebirth first, then reason and recycle and still have my original big box software with everything intact.

I have a G4 Mac mini 1.33ghz running the MacOS9lives OS 9.2.2 which is running great.

I’ll be installing all the software over Christmas and getting back into it all. I have an old M Audio keyboard with a built in soundcard I think I’ll use.

I will document the journey in this thread in case anyone is doing similar . Maybe it’ll help in some way.

I expect I’ll be installing Logic 4.8.1 (using that patcher I remember that says “Excellent!” From Bill & Ted when it’s launched  ).

I’ve just ordered a DVI-I to VGA adapter as I can’t find mine anywhere so hopefully should be up and running fairly soon. Speak soon RetroMacAudioNutters!

Basically, something BIZARRE happened when I was using Mac OS 9.2.2 recently, which made many pieces click together: I got System Sounds and FULL volume control e.g. on the Control Strip for me to adjust on the mini. "Suddenly". This is completely unprecedented to ALL of us Mac OS users on the mini.

Interesting! So far I haven't been able to reproduce this.
To confirm, do you have sound coming from the Mac mini's internal speaker?

My attempts involved:

• Switching to the 10.2.1 ROM on Mac OS 9.2.2
• Installing System 7.0 (with System Enabler 356 71x from v20251203; boot 2 and 3 copied from System 7.1)
• Experimenting with both leaving the NVRAM alone (after booting 7.0) and resetting NVRAM on different occasions.

So far no luck with changes to the onboard audio on Mac OS 9.

On the other hand, I haven't had any more stuck mouse cursors after any of my numerous restarts today with the 10.2.1 ROM, so that either looks promising or I've been exceptionally lucky.

Exciting development. It sounds like we're getting near to a v10 of the mini CD.

Yes indeed, this would certainly call for a new disc!

For the next CD, I’m hoping there can be a big upgrade, such as onboard audio functionality. The progress being made some time ago looked to be going in the right direction. It’d be great if it’s successful, but still worth investigating nonetheless.