Tried to boot into os 9 all I see is blinking question mark

J

jeepattack89

Registered
I have a ibook g3 clamshell 576mb ram 366mhz 30gb hd. I added the hard drive and upgraded the memory and then forgot to update the firmware before I installed os x tiger. So I keep getting kernal panics because the firmware is not upgraded. Like a fool when I upgraded to tiger I erased os 9 to free up more space thinking I would never use os 9 ever again anyway. Well the only way you can upgrade the firmware is to have os 9 installed so I copied os 9 system folder and applications from another ibook and transformed them to my ibook hd. I then clicked on the os 9 on the start up disk and tried to boot into os 9 so I could do the firmware update. Well now it will not boot past the blinking question mark. I guess there must of been some missing files? How do i get past the blinking question mark? Do I have to go and buy a copy of os 9 to reinstall it back on the ibook? Please help I am stuck here.
 
I forgot to mention that the ibook had a 10gb hard drive that had os 9.1 on it. when I changed the hard drive to a 30gb it already had 10.4.11 tiger on it. So thats how I upgraded to tiger. The hard drive came out of a ibook g4. Any help would be appreciated.
 
It sounds like the drive you installed with 10.4 on it does not have the necessary OS 9 support files on it.
The simpilist solution would be to reinstall the original HD, then boot OS 9 and update the firmware, then you should be able to install the new drive with OSX 10.4 and boot from it.
 
I suspect that maybe you don't have the OS 9 drivers installed on the hard drive? That will not allow booting into OS 9, even if an OS 9 system is installed properly.
You wouldn't even notice that when the drive was installed in an iBook G4, because you would use OS 9 through Classic, but it won't actually boot into OS 9 natively.

You can find out for sure by booting to OS X on your clamshell. Open your Applications folder, then Utilities, and double-click System Profiler.
Click ATA in the list on the left, and select your hard drive. You should see a listing of your hard drive and ATA bus properties. One will be Mac OS 9 drivers installed. The response will be either Yes or No.
If No - the OS 9 drivers cannot be added to an existing format. You must erase the hard drive with Disk Utility, choosing to add the OS 9 drivers at that time. Also, that means that you lose anything on that hard drive that's not backed up, and you have to reinstall from scratch. You could back up to an external drive (you should have a built-in Firewire port)
Too bad that removing the hard drive is such a challenge on the clamshell. It's a slowpoke system to install anything and copy files to the internal drive.
And - the firmware can't be updated unless you are booted to OS 9 on the internal hard drive.

Are you certain that the firmware is not already updated - and trying to install OS 9 just for that ?
You can make sure by booting to open firmware (Hold Option-Apple-O and F when booting)
The top line in Open Firmware should show your firmware version. Latest will show 4.1.7
If that's OK, then you have other issues - you just upgraded your RAM, so that 512 MB chip would be a good suspect.
 
I can not get past the blinking ? mark to boot back into os x tiger to check and see about the drivers for os 9. Also yea I am sure I have the old firmware I meant to upgrade the firmware before I added the memory and changed the hd with tiger on it but forgot. I know the old firmware does not even support 256mb memory or any operating system above 10.2 That drive was a pain and I really don't want to remove it again. Also will os 9.2 work to upgrade the firmware or does it have to be os 9.1 Apple web site says at least 9.1 so I am thinking 9.2 would be ok?
 
9.2 should work for the firmware update.

I would suggest trying to 'bless' the OS 9 System Folder, if you can.
Boot to an OS 9 installer CD.
Browse into your hard drive, and open the System Folder. This is the OS 9 system folder.
Drag the Finder out of the System Folder. Wait a few seconds. You should see that the various special folders (Control Panels, Extensions, Apple Menu Items, etc) will have generic icons. Drag the Finder back in to that System Folder. The icons should change to the special icons, indicating that the folder is now blessed. Go to your Apple Menu, then Control Panels, and choose Startup Disk. Select your hard drive as the OS 9 boot (not the installer CD), then try to restart your iBook. That might be all you need to do.

If you still get the flashing ?, then you should consider wiping the drive, and reinstalling OS 9 to a blank HD.
It's getting to be quite a project, eh?
 
Yea its a project but still fun. I guess my next move here is to buy the os 9 cd and then go from there. Thanks for your help and I will update this post and keep you guys informed
 
I will wander in and just remind you to make sure the OS 9 CD is a RETAIL disk and not just a "gray" disk that came with a computer. These are machine specific. There are a lot of these sold on Ebay. If you do not happen to have the exact same model, you just bought a beer coaster.

Also, OS 9 is SO old--but I loved it!--it better be dirt frelling cheap.

Just looking online I see a lot of [CENSORED--Ed.] are trying to charge > $50 for a CD--which is, like, twelvfty maple syrup jugs [Stop that!--Ed.].

IF you are near an Apple dealer, repairer, you might ask if they have one and are willing to let you borrow it to save you the $$$. I mean, you really should not be spending $$$ for such an old system.

--J.D.
 
Yea I am about 2 hours from a apple dealer but I did buy a retail os 9 on ebay for $27 lot more then I wanted to pay!! Why are they charging so much for such an old os must be because of people like me, ;-)
 
ok guys I finally got os 9 installed and working great,. Here is my problem. I went to apple website downloaded the firmware update and when I try to open the .smi file it says can not open no application is selected to open this file. What the heck I thought .smi was a self mounting image? What application do i open it with and how do i select the application to get ti to associate with this file? I have never used os 9 "I know" can somebody walk me through so I can install this firmware update, Thanks
 
Are you booted to OS X? or OS 9?
You have to be booted to OS 9 to open that .smi file. I don't think you can do this while booted to OS X, and running OS 9 in Classic environment.

Just to make sure - select your Control Panels (under the Apple Menu), then Startup Disk, and choose the OS 9 volume. OR, go to your System Preferences, then Startup Disk, and make sure that the OS 9 volume is selected.
And, important! - Restart your Mac. You should see the old Mac smiley face (you should NOT see the grey Apple icon) then the Mac OS 9 screen which shows the extensions loading. If you downloaded that firmware update through OS X, you will need to find it through the Users folder on your hard drive, then your own user, and probably will be in the Desktop folder somewhere, or in whatever folder you normally would download files.
Then, open the .smi - and open the disk that mounts on your desktop.
Open the disk to get at the firmware updater. Run the updater, and follow the instructions to complete the install.
 
Thanks but yea I am booted into os 9 and know how to start up in either. It just will not open. I did get the firmware update to work. Thank god the update was included with the os 9 disk I have. But i have 2 clamshells and the indigo will not take the os 9 install. everytime it loads the os 9 disk and I get ready two install it goes into sleep mode, when you wake it out of sleep it goes instantly back into sleep and the only way too stop it is to unplug the power cord. It did take an old os x 10.0.3 install but will do the same thing unless I remove the old battery. What is wrong with it. Never seen this before.
 
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