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[Bolkonskij]

Recently restored my Mac OS 9 partition. This was done using the program "SuperDuper" while on OS X 10.5, residing on a second partition on my Mini's SSD. All files were successfully restored onto the OS 9 partition. This partition has not been changed since 2020 and had OS 9 running on it before.

I blessed the System Folder and made it the preferred boot using this Apple Script (nevermind the bold placeholders)

-------------------------------------------------------------
on run
   try
      do shell script "bless -folder9 '/Volumes/MY OS 9 DRIVE NAME/System Folder' -setOF" user name "MY USERNAME" password "ADMIN PASSWORD" with administrator privileges
   end try
   try
      tell application "Finder"
         restart
      end tell
   end try
end run
-------------------------------------------------------------

Ran fine and restarted, trying to boot into OS 9. I do, however, only got the iconic floppy disk with a question mark. Hmm!

Rebooting and using option to get to the boot selector. Mac OS 9 shows up together with OS X and I can choose between the two. If I pick OS 9, I'll end up with the question mark floppy again after some time. It won't do anything, even if I let it sit for a minute. OS X still booting fine.

I find it odd in that it recognizes OS 9 (apparently "finds" it but when trying to boot it suddenly acts like "sorry, can't find anything".

Any ideas? What am I overlooking?

[MigMac]

not sure I understand/master everything but...

if memory serves me right, OSX 10.5 isn't Classic compatible, so maybe there's an issue there.

In order to restore your OS9 volume, maybe it's best to boot from an external firewire drive or from another mac (command-T?) that has an OS9 working volume and transfer your OS9 files manually on the dedicated volume/partition?

[robespierre]

A system that boots OS 9 needs to have drivers to access a hard disk. The traditional way these drivers are loaded is by placing them in special APM partitions. That is why copying just the files from one disk to another doesn't make the latter bootable.

It is possible to integrate a hard disk driver into the Mac ROM file instead of using partitions.

OS X uses a different system architecture, and doesn't use driver partitions at all (or Mac ROM files). Instead, the boot loader puts the kernel in memory along with the drivers that it requires.

[MigMac]

It is possible to integrate a hard disk driver into the Mac ROM file instead of using partitions.

Interesting, how do you do that?


When OSX 10.5 was installed, maybe it modified/altered the partition table, hence the problem, idk

[IIO]

while i am not exactly sure, i also suspect that it is not possible to copy the driver partition using superduper.

[aBc]

Is this by any chance the 1.42 GHz mini that you reported as Grey Screen Only on 4/1/2025 - now attempting to rise from the proverbial ashes like a Phoenix?

https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=6875.msg58093#msg58093

If so, hallelujah indeed!

[Bolkonskij]

I ruled out the "missing OS 9 drivers" issue because I did *not* change the partitions at all and was under the impression that the drivers would still be there. After all, I just erased the contents of the OS 9 partition, not the partition itself, before copying the files back on it. I wonder if SuperDuper did something odd during the copying and will try to manually copy stuff and see if that makes a difference.

Anyway, thanks guys! I appreciate all the answers!