Reading the play-by-play here (which I know has played out over a long period but is now very relevant for me!). I am VERY interested in the progress you are making, though it does seem to have hit a wall.
My situation is a catch-22 with a 1GHz G4 eMac:
This is the SECOND iteration of the 1GHz eMac, so it technically was never a native OS 9 booting machine.
I am stuck because:
1. Trying to setup a big drive with multiple partitions (500GB, and I will be happy with 4 partitions)
2. Want dual-boot 10.4 and OS9
3. If I partition with OS9Lives CD, Disk Setup can only see like 130GB, but it DOES install OS 9 Drivers of course, and once installed OS9 boots fine, shows up holding ALT key etc.
4. Getting OSX setup in additional large partitions is problematic because: Disk Utility CAN partition the whole drive the way I want, BUT
It does NOT give me the option to install OS9 drivers. This is so frustrating because you see that advice all over the internet, “just make sure ‘Install OS 9 Drivers’ option is checked.” Well, the option does not even exist, so I am screwed. I end up with the right partitions, but without the drivers, so. . . OS9 is not going to boot once I put it on a partition.
It seems like my desire is identical to your recent simplified attempts: 10.4 Tiger plus OS 9 on separate partitions without the OS9 Drivers, only I have a G4 eMac.
Maybe I am just not aware of some utility that will let me partition 500GB and install the drivers. I am fine with that, but so far, the only way I can get them is partitioning with OS 9, and then I cannot see the whole drive to partition it.
If there is anything I can try, or you have a shared ROM file you’d like me to drop in, I could. I am not up to speed with the ROM file patching steps above, but I think I was following along OK.