Ah the mysteries of Apple. I came here to report everything is working - I think - but the how and why makes no sense. At least to me, and I like to understand things, or I wouldn't be messing with this in the first place, right?!
Btw it would have been more clear if I had written "Classic can't start up with either" in my previous post.
So today I booted up in my Cloned Tiger partition (copied from my original hard drive). I trashed the Aliases to my original System 9 folder that I had moved to an ext hdd, which has failed. Last night I put copies of this site's OS9 ISO in this partition, even though they were reported as "read only" in the partition with the Fresh Tiger install. I decided to try the "extended" version and put "standard" in a folder, but I still had to choose the one I wanted in Classic Sys Prefs. When I tried to start Classic in this partition, it said it needed to update, and I agreed or clicked continue, whatever. I thought it wouldn't be able to, since I don't have internet at home, but it updated itself and then Classic started up, hooray. Then I booted in my Fresh Tiger partition. I started Classic and voila, it worked! However it was running from the Sys 9 folder in my Cloned Tiger Partition. So I opened Classic Sys Prefs and selected the Sys 9 folder in my Fresh Tiger partition. Instead of aborting with an announcenent that it was Read Only like last night, it too declared that it had to update itself, so I agreed and it did. With Classic running I checked that I was going to be able to install Photoshop by starting an Adobe Reader install that comes with it. Everything looks fine, but I am going to do the zillions of Tiger and Java updates before actually installing my software.
There is a thread here where the responder suggests it is much better to have OS9 on a separate partition. The fact that Classic started up from the folder in my Cloned Tiger partition when I was booted in my Fresh Tiger partition makes me think that the aliases "to nowhere" in my other partition is what Classic might have been seeing as "Read Only" last night. Combining that with the fact that the OS9 drivers have to be on the root level before partitions are created indicates that Classic only needs to be present in one location anywhere on the internal hard drive, not in each partition. However since I am not planning to use OS9 and I only have it there to be able to install software for Tiger, I hope it won't create the problems described in the other thread... but maybe those problems are what were plaguing my original hard drive. So ideally, if I ever manage to get all the software installed in my Fresh Tiger partition, as well as photos etc copied, I might be able to erase my Cloned Tiger partition, and install OS9 on that partition so that I can erase OS9 in my Fresh Tiger partition. (I wish I could find that thread again!).
I am pretty sure that OS9 doesn't come on retail Tiger discs, and it might not even come with Panther, but I think it is on Jaguar and earlier. If your G4 iBook was updated to Tiger that could explain why you have it. People used to sell Tiger and OS9 discs together for people who wanted both. I wasn't given any OS discs when I bought my Powerbook in 2002 for $2K and I didn't know enough to ask for them, having only worked on a Win98se desktop that I got by helping at a computer recycling event before I went Mac. Maybe Tiger discs that came with a computer have OS9, but not retail Tiger discs? Anyway since I always did have the OS9 drivers I should gave seen OS9 if it was on my Tiger disk to be ibstalled.
I don't plan to worry about TWC/Spectrum because I can't afford internet or tv atm. However I think their routers/modems don't support Tiger; it wasn't possible to select the type of security. I couldn't even connect with None selected. I spent countless hours changing settings when I was trying to work with their "tech support". My friend just got TWC/Spectrum installed and Tiger doesn't work with her wifi either. I never did believe their claim that my Powerbook couldn't work on the same wifi as my iPhone because until they took away their old box it did.
Thank you for all the help! It's great that this site and forum exist... I have been taking more than enough flak just for wanting to use Tiger on my Powerbook, lol! I love it for the VHS out, and the PCMCIA slot that lets me hot swap firewire drives for video editing.
I hope that the fires are out soon, it's been a hard season for the West... take care!