Odeers may be more appropriate here than ideers? I just tried booting an iMac CRT 500MHz (Summer 2001) running 10.4.9 with SecUpdate 2007-05 from:

iMac Install OS 9.0 Z691-2464-A
iMac Install OS 9.0.4 Z691-2629-A
Full Install OS 9.1 Z691-2748-A

which were all totally ignored, with either c key or option key held at startup. However, Full Install OS 9.2.1 Z691-3334-A enabled booting to the Installer desktop. This accords with the behaviour that I noticed when setting up four CRT 500MHz iMacs from 9.1. I could partition the drives and install OS 9 disk drivers, but after installation of OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.3.x or 10.4.x, OS 9.1 would not boot any of them.

I have to believe that this is deliberate on Apple's part, since OS 9.1 is not a happy exponent of Classic Mode. I marvel that you were able to boot from OS 9.0.4 but not from 9.2.x. Missing OS 9 drivers does not seem to be an explanation, because the Mac boots from 9.0.4. You could look and guess for ever-and-a-day and get no resolution. Perhaps it is worth your while to back up your drive, reformat (and re-partition) as you wish, and be sure to install the latest OS 9 disk drivers from 9.2.1 or in Disk Utility under OS 10.4.

de

ok, first off I have a new(ish) 120gb HD, so backing up is kind of impossible at the moment. it's my largest hard drive. all my other hard drives would barely reach half the capacity. even with all that space, I only have around 22gb free. I know, get an external hard drive, but I have a couple machines that need new internal hard drives first.

and, this machine has ran many OSes since I got it in Devember 2005. first, I ran Ubuntu 5.10 on it, then Mac OS 9.2.2 for a stretch. Then, I went back to ubuntu, but I was running 6.06. then, I ran Mac OS 10.3 for a week, and finally, I arrived at 10.4 in october of last year. When I had it running strictly 9.2.2, it ran great. I don't know what could be causing it, my setup has changed greatly over time. And I do not have the time to strip it down to stock.

-digital

My suggestion at this point would be to put OS 9 on its own partition if you haven't done so already. It sounds like it might be OS X or something OS X has done to the firmware of the machine, being a bit cranky.

If you just need OS X (but not OS 9) for now, don't bother messing around with the setup too much, because Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, I have found, don't coexist particularly well.

I've also personally experienced situations in which (I think) dual-booting has caused OS X simply to fail, causing much worry on my part. (However, a reinstall-in-place fixed it with no data loss, I ended up returning to single-booting that machine, and using OS 9 on another.) Your mileage may vary, however.

If you can manage it, what I would do if you direly need OS 9, (on the same computer) is probably to put a secondary hard drive in and try OS 9 on that, while leaving the 120-gig drive for OS X. When you can, backup/archive the 120gigger onto CDs (ouch!) or DVDs (still..) and at that point, install OS 9 first.

I tend to always format my drives, but I don't zero them, in this particular installation, which might have been 10.3 or 10.4, I had cleanly installed OS X then OS 9 (the way my tibook's installs were handled) and within a few months the failure had happened.

It's only happened to me once, but I'm much more wary now, about OS X and 9 coexisting, except possibly in situations where one is required for the existance of the other, as in the case of my old powerbook G4, whose OS 9 installer was an OS X application.

Unfortunately, it simply wasn't possible in my case, I didn't have a standalone 9.2.2 disc with the proper drivers for my PowerBook G4, and my G4's disc only installs OS 9 using a special restoration app, that runs inside OS X. There is no booting into OS9 on that dvd.

9 and X can apparently be quite happy in the same partition, most people tell me it's a great idea and everything's peachy when you do it that way - the only reason I do it that way is because my data-space is then connected, and I'm real big on efficiency of data space.

Naturally, in most cases, I'm so obsessive about it, I prefer not to even have OS X and OS 9 on the same computer, and the one time I did let it happen, it was on my PowerMac G3, and they were on separate physical hard discs.

It is one of the PBG4s that can boot 9 natively? Can OS9 only be installed on these machines using a disc containing special drivers then, you can't use a standard OS9 CD?

On my G3 I have them on separate partitions on the same 12 GB hard drive, the first 8 GB for Tiger and the rest for 9.2.2, and it seems to be happy that way. I'm not sure if that works the same as newer Macs though - on newer Macs if you boot up in 9 does that change the default startup disk to 9, or does it always boot in X unless you actually use the startup disk control panel (as opposed to holding option on startup) to change it? On the Beige it always boots X unless you hold option; I haven't used the control panel as there's no need.

I've never run into problems with 9 and X co-existing - I've set up two Macs in a similar way, one with XPF and one without, and they always seem very happy together I'm pretty sure the Beige will still boot even 9.1, not only 9.2.2, after having X put on it, or at least I was able to boot from the 9.1 CD when I was having problems with the installation and the first CD of Tiger (ie the core of the OS) was already installed and it wouldn't boot back into the installer to finish it off with the second CD.

It was a 1GHz PowerBook G4/15", so yes - can boot OS 9 natively. I don't know how much it really needs in the way of anything in the way of "special" drivers, but at the time I didn't have the 9.2.1 cd I've got now, so the tibook restore dvd was my only install method anyway.

As far as coexisting goes, it works fine for the first week or two, but my installs were getting up there in the months, and I had been doing a lot of rebooting between OS9 and OSX, because I rarely use classic mode.

None of my reboots were violent in any way, I always closed down my apps, then rebooted using the startup disk control panel.

Then, one day, it wouldn't boot OS X. Not sure how, or why, but it wouldn't. Luckily a reinstall-in-place worked fine, but it was at that point that I decided never to use a production system with both OS X and 9 on it.

On many Macs one can hold "x" to boot OS X, and hold "m" to boot classic Mac OS, just as one would hold "c" to boot a CD.

Except the beige G3 (and possibly all Old World Macs) where it is necessary to hold "option" to boot Mac OS when OS X is selected as the startup system.

Peace,
Drew