I've been trying to get an OS9 (separate SSD), 10.4, 10.5 setup on my MDD and have tried both GaryN's approach and Image.Material's.
Mac OS 10.2 (and I assume 10.3) doesn't seem to cause these errors because Spotlight and Time Machine aren't present.
Mac OS 10.4 is fine as long as you install it and disable Spotlight before creating OS9 drives with the following steps:
There were so many referrals to this subject over years that I can't remember every single detail of every one of my posts about it.
In OSX 10.4 for Spotlight and 10.5 for both including Time Machine, unless you
never boot or use OSX – and I know there are those who don't – both Spotlight and TM are easily locked out of the OS9 volume in OSX prefs…
no typing required.Also, TM doesn't even begin to cause a problem unless/until you enable it, specify a BU Volume etc and allow it to start cataloging everything for the initial backup.
When you first boot OSX with a newer or older OS9 Volume present, or
any other volume, it
will invariably take notice of it and write itself a little invisible note in the "new" Volume Directory. This is
not the problem… in fact you
want this to be so or else the OS9 Volume won't even
appear in OSX and OSX won't be able to read the OS9 Directory at all. It won't even appear on the OSX Desktop and you won't be able to access any files or move anything
to or
from the OS9 Volume.
So again, at first OSX boot in 10.4, Spotlight will immediately start to read the OS9 Directory and
if allowed time, will begin indexing the files. That is what
must be prevented because on the first OS9 boot, it will be seen by the OS9 Finder as corruption and the OS will try to "fix" it. On the next OSX boot, the "fix" will be seen by OSX as corruption and it will fix the fix. OSX will not have a problem but go back on OS9 and it will be seen a serious B-Tree error.
Neither OS9 Disk Repair or Norton-anything or Uncle's Joe's Magic OS9 Repair can "fix" the UNIX-derived gobbledegook simply because
all of them pre-date OSX and they've never even seen this stuff before.
If you simply go to OSX prefs immediately after this "first" OSX boot and tell Spotlight to
not index OS9, that's
all it takes to stop all the insanity
before it starts. If it's 10.5, you
then take the opportunity to lock out TM the same way, even if you're not using it just to prevent trouble in case you decide to use it in the future. I've never found it necessary to resort to
anything more than this.
It's really that simple as long as you don't forget to do it.