Mac OS 9.1 boot from CD failure

[Ianf]

First of all a disclaimer, I'm a PC guy who has recently gotten himself into supporting Macs (more specifically Mac OS X, which I am extremely impressed with). So forgive some of my Mac 'ignance.

The system I’m working with is a newer iBook (heh, I don't know the processor speed -_-;, it has 128MB of ram, dvd support).

I am trying to Dual Boot OS X and OS 9. To accomplish this I am setting them up on their own separate partitions (that way my client has the ability to just hold down the option key and boot-it old school).

I booted off the OS X CD, got into disk manager and setup my partitions. I understand that OS 9 must go on the primary partition for it to boot correctly. I have tried the following partition schemes:

[01]Macintosh Extended [02] Unix
[01]Macintosh Standard [02]Unix
[01]Macintosh Extended[02]Free Space
[01]Macintosh Standard[02]Free Space

No matter what partition config I try, when I boot off the OS 9.1 CD it gets to the screen that says "Mac OS 9.1" and has all those CD's in the background and the status says "Starting Up..."; then I get the bomb error:

"Sorry, a system error has occurred."
" bus error"
"To temporarily turn off extensions, restarted and hold down the shift key."

Restarting with extensions off does not help either.

I'm pretty sure this is not a hardware issue, as when I re-setup the partition scheme and install OS X on the primary it installs without any problem.

So, any thoughts? Do I need OS 9.2 install CD instead of 9.1? Is my partitioning incorrect? I have been unable to find a really comprehensive document that answers all my questions in terms of partitioning and install-what-in-what-order for this kind of setup.

Thanks in advance,
Ian

[Captain Code]

This won't fix your current problem, but will prevent you from having problems later on.

You want to have both your partitions as HFS+ (Mac OS Extended). OSX will install and work better on HFS+.

OSX has terrible UFS support from what I've heard.

The iBook should be able to boot off of that CD. Maybe there's a scratch on it or something? Are you using a generic OS9 CD or a specialized CD that comes with Macs, such as a tower?

[Ianf]

I'm pretty sure it's not a scratch as I look at it (unless it's a really small scratch, and I am truly that unlucky). I am using a generic 9.1 (big orange nine on it) CD. I also tried my girlfriend's software install CD for her Titanium and it errors out the exact same way in the exact same place.

Thanks for your lightning quick response.
-Ian

[dricci]

It may be the way you have your partitions set up, I really didn't understand what you were trying to do with those other partitions, it was a confusing diagram, atleast to me

You could just do two partitions. Make 2 HFS+ partitions, name one Mac OS 9 and the other Mac OS X, size them however you'd like, and then install from there. This may fix that error. I haven't tried it, so I'm not sure.

[Ianf]

Uh yea was kind of a confusing diagram, basically I have tried:

first partition: hfs+
second partition: unix (ufs or nfs?)

--and--

first partition: hfs (i guess that's what it is, listed as "Macintosh Standard")
second partition: unix

--and--
first partition: hfs+
second partition: empty space

--annd
first partition: "hfs" (Mac Standard in disk manager)
second partition: free space.

However, I have not tried both as HFS+, so I will try this, thanks.

-Ian

[dricci]

Try to stay away from Apple's Unix filesystem (UFS). It's buggy and doesn't support a whole lot of apps. It's mostly only used on Mac OS X Server.

I see what you were trying to do now. You could make a 3rd HFS+ partition named "Storage" or something if you wanted to keep files off of the main OS partitions, however Mac OS X apps don't support being outside of the /Applications folder very well.

Whatever you do, make sure you use HFS+ and not HFS. HFS is pre-HFS+ and is outdated. Also, OS X will only install on HFS+.

[Ianf]

Hmm, actually maybe I didn't make it clear what I'm trying to do; or maybe I have a misconception.

I thought in order to do the "hold down option key" at boot trick I had to install OS X and OS 9 to seperate partitions. Having them on the same partition makes it so you have to go into control panel or system settings and specify it, then reboot again. Maybe I'm misunderstanding on this point?

At any rate, I tried both as HFS+ and had the same problem. I also tried making just one big partition that was HFS+ and booting off OS 9 cd still gave me the same error.

I am doing all this partitioning using the OS X disk manager btw.

-Ian

[dricci]

Do you have a Apple Hardware Test disc that came with your iBook? If so, boot from that and let it run a full scan. It sounds like it may be hardware related.

And as far as I know, to boot from the option key, you can *only* choose entire drives, not partitions. To change boot partitions, you have to use the startup disk control panel in OS 9 or the System Prefs in OS X.