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[ClairelyClaire]

I have a clamshell iBook G3 with a strange problem.

Every time I boot into OS X, it somehow unblesses the OS 9 system folder, and I have to boot off another machine or hard drive to re-bless the folder so it will boot. The even stranger thing is that the OS 9 partition will show in the OF boot loader at Opt+Boot, but it won't actually load (shows the happy mac and then a question mark folder) until I rebless the system folder.

The drive has three partitions, in this order: OS 9 | OS X | Data. The OS 9 partition is well under the maximum size - I think it's like 6GB or something. This is the only dual boot 9/X machine I have with this problem, too.

What's causing this and how can I fix it?

[geforceg4]

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE 9 + X INSTALLED ON THE SAME DISK/PARTITION

its said here on this site numerous numerous locations that us macos9 users like to AVOID
having mac osX on the same machine + same hard drive (regardless of it being a seperate partition)
BECAUSE OF EXACTLY WHAT U ARE EXPERIENCING..

a black hole of limbo wierdness begins to occurr.. the two os have a habit of fighting at a filesystem level
and creating unrecoverable errors. so its best to either use X or 9 and not BOTH..
(if u havent experienced this yet.. consider yourself very lucky... keep using both os and eventually i will
bet that u will experience this. maybe not this season, or next year, but eventually,  when using the right
software + the right set of circumstances.. BOOM itll happen.. unrecoverable Btree error!)

BUT..

IF YOU MUST HAVE X + 9 ON THE SAME MACHINE
do yourself a favour.. read these rules to follow to save your sanity:

1) use a seperate drive for each OS install
2) DONT access one drive from the other when booted to X,
2a)(This means dont TOUCH or EVEN READ the mac os 9 files on the mac os 9 partition when booted up on the X partition)
2b) (and also the reverse, dont TOUCH or EVEN READ the mac os X files on the os X partition when booted up on the 9 partition)
3) if u want to transfer files between the two use an external drive, or email, or a network drive location, and PACKAGE FILES properly for internet transport (ie: use .img.bin or .sit format the same as u would to upload files to the internet for travelling on non-mac filesystems)

anyway those are my comments, perhaps someone else has something helpful to offer you.

[IIO]

while it should be ok to have the OS´s on the same disk, i guess that you are using this OS9 folder as clasic enviroment, too, and would at least recommend against this.

i dont know offhand now how you can deselect the bluebox path, so just install a fresh default OS 922 as classic enviroment, select this from 10.4 as "classic" and see if it makes a difference for your OS9 boot folder.

i would also be intrested if this also hapens when you reboot into OS9 from the OSX startvolume panel? you currently use ALT i guess.

[GaryN]

…the OS 9 partition will show in the OF boot loader at Opt+Boot, but it won't actually load (shows the happy mac and then a question mark folder) until I rebless the system folder.

My first guess is that there's something "wrong" with the folder hierarchy. The System file and the Finder file must reside side-by-side in the System Folder at the root / top level of the OS9 partition (which you very probably know) and you "rebless" a System by simply yanking it out of the folder and putting it back.

The happy Mac means the computer knows there's a OS9 System available. The ? means it can't find it when it goes to fetch it.

The clue is that it happens every time you use OSX. Here's where we enter the Twilight Zone where, as above, people tell you that having OSX and OS9 on the same computer, in the same room, in the same country etc etc will cause the world to end. While their paranoia is understandable, given the mysterious nature of the problems that can develop (just like what is happening to you) you can cure it very easily.

What's most likely happening is that OSX is writing stuff on the OS9 partition that is screwing up the OS9 directory. The two bad OSX actors that cause this are Spotlight and Time Machine. Since you have 10.4, you're problem is Spotlight. What happens is Spotlight indexes the OS9 drive and writes it in the OS9 partition, in the OS9 directory area. OS9 looks at this and sees it as gobbledegook instead of a readable directory. This wasn't "supposed" to happen… remember, Apple wanted you to move on from the Mac OS into OSX and use Classic if you had OS9 apps you couldn't / wouldn't give up.

The solution is: Boot into OSX, immediately go to System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy and prevent Spotlight from searching the entire OS9 partition. Restart and go back to OS9. If it won't start, re-bless your System one last time (this depends on how long it took you to shut Spotlight off since it starts re-indexing the OS9 drive immediately when you boot OSX). That's it, end of issue. There is a chance you may ultimately have to re-install OS9 because what you have now is still a directory that's still messed up with Spotlight data in it. A pass with Disk Warrior at least, won't hurt and is advisable, although it may work fine forever without.

Actually, this usually causes even bigger problems than you're having where the OS's start fighting with each other trying to "fix" the OS9 directory with their respective disk utilities. So, there is a small chance that something else is wrong but I doubt it and I think this is all you need to do.

Note re above: I don't guess you're using Classic at all, but if by some chance you are, it should have its own OS9 System on the 10.4 partition and that's another thing entirely.