mac os 9 install on mac os x machine

[circc]

Hi, I have a 12''PB with Mac OS X and no MacOS 9 (only Classic). I need Mac OS9 and have the original MacOS9 CDROM. Are there any issues with installing Mac OS 9 and being able to boot either or the other? Can I just perform a regular install or will I lose my Mac OS X environment?
Thanks for any hints (or webpages) on that.

[Electribe F]

Your machine will not allow you to install os 9 on it however...I've heard that if you take the hard drive out, put it into a os 9 compatable machine, set up 2 partitions and install os 9 on one and 10 on the other, it may work out for you. Can anyone confirm this?

[Sun Baked]

It's a chipset issue and the lack of a ROM file (PB 12 aware) that'll hamper OS 9 bootability.

If people remember Apple had to update the ROMs for every new machine that came out, and it's been a long time since the ROM file has been updated.

And the change with the new Intrepid DDR chipset used in the DDR PowerBooks killed OS 9 bootability.

Even if you could get it to boot into OS 9, a good chuck of the hardware may not work.

---

Plus a simple way for the Apple to completely kill OS 9 bootability is modify the bootROM to no longer search for the OS 9 "Mac OS ROM" file to bootstrap it's way into OS 9.

[tomf87]

Originally posted by Electribe F
Your machine will not allow you to install os 9 on it however...I've heard that if you take the hard drive out, put it into a os 9 compatable machine, set up 2 partitions and install os 9 on one and 10 on the other, it may work out for you. Can anyone confirm this?


Actually I was in the same predicament with my 800 17" iMac. I just figured I'd lose my OS X setup, but it stayed! I just booted from the OS 9 CD and set it up as normal. Same partition and everything and voila, everything was golden.

Of course, the 12" PB may not be able to boot OS 9 as stated above.

[doctorhook]

I have an 80Gb hard drive on my G4. Recently I had to do a clean install of OS X to solve some problems. I decided not to install OS 9 because I never use it. This reclaimed 30Gb of hard drive space.

Nice gift!