Mac OS 9.1 boot from CD failure

I

Ianf

Registered
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:rolleyes:
 
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?
 
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
 
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 :D

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.
 
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
 
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+.
 
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
 
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.
 
Originally posted by dricci
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.
Click to expand...

No, the option key at start up works fine with separate partitions on the same drive. I have mine set up that way, and it works.
 
Dricci, I'll try to get my hands on that hardware test CD, thanks for your suggestions.

macavenger, what was the exact process in terms of partioning and installation you went through to get both OS'es working on seperate partitions?

Finally, I don't have to set one of the partitions to "bootable" like I do in linux or the windows world do I? It must automatically make the first partition bootable, as I don't see this option anywhere.

-Ian
 
Originally posted by Ianf

Finally, I don't have to set one of the partitions to "bootable" like I do in linux or the windows world do I? It must automatically make the first partition bootable, as I don't see this option anywhere.
-Ian
Click to expand...

You're having some strange problems. It's usually OSX that's more picky about the hardware, not OS9.

You can boot off of any HFS+ partition as long as it has an OS installed on it and that OS supports your hardware.
 
Ian -

I think you have more than one problem - the UFS partition is likely one of them, and I suspect that you either have a bad (defective, damaged) OS 9.1 CD or you are running into a prob I have seen with the 'New World' macs (anything newer than the Beige G3s) - there is a PROM on board that gets updated every time the OS is upgraded, and then you cannot install or even boot to any older version of the OS, regardless of what shipped on that machine. This is true even if you completely wipe or replace the HD - so if at some point in its life, that iBook had, say, 9.2.2 installed, then you can never again use it with 8.6, 9.0, 9.04, 9.1, 9.1.2, or 9.2.1.

Another possibility - I remember a bunch of OS 8.x CDs that would give you a bus error crash at boot every time, unless you enabled AppleTalk before you rebooted. I have not heard of this with 9.x, but it's easy enough to find out, and it might be the case.

hope this helps,

Kbeartx

http://www.techsurvivors.net
 
kbeartx said:
Ian - there is a PROM on board that gets updated every time the OS is upgraded, and then you cannot install or even boot to any older version of the OS, regardless of what shipped on that machine. This is true even if you completely wipe or replace the HD - so if at some point in its life, that iBook had, say, 9.2.2 installed, then you can never again use it with 8.6, 9.0, 9.04, 9.1, 9.1.2, or 9.2.1.

Another possibility - I remember a bunch of OS 8.x CDs that would give you a bus error crash at boot every time, unless you enabled AppleTalk before you rebooted. I have not heard of this with 9.x, but it's easy enough to find out, and it might be the case.

hope this helps,

Kbeartx

This is closer to what I am experiencing with my iBook 500. I bought it used and did not immediately start with the (known good) OS 9.1 CD and wipe the drive and begin from new. Instead, I saw that there was supposed to be an OS 9.2 system on the HD. I tried to boot from it as Start Up Disk in OS 10.4.? showed it to be present. (Assume nothing!) When I booted into OS 9.2 I got the flashing question mark. Then the computer wouldn't boot off of the 9.1 CD, but would go so far 1st telling me that I needed to restart and disable extensions:( I have OS 10.4 on DVD and 10.2 & 10.3 on CD so I tried them. Booted fine w/ 10.2 ran a verify disk and verify permissions. Disk turned out OK but permissions were all screwed up. Apparently the person that sold this on ebay just transferred a disk image onto the HD. (They were not fresh, clean installs) I'm pretty confident that there were key elements missing from the OS 9.2 folder and as such there was no foundation for the OS 9.2 system to boot up properly from. I like the eprom concept and I'm going to try and find a reset button somewhere withing this iBook that will hopefully restore it to square 1. For a 12" laptop, I'm fairly impressed with it, and don't mind expanding my knowledge base to allow for any idiosyncrasies it might have. If anyone has done a hard reset to an iBook dual USB, maybe they can share it here. I don't believe that it is impossible to put OS 9.2 back on the iBook, so if I am successful, I will return here and post my triumph.:)
Click to expand...
 
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