Back To The Future

[skateny]

Haven't been around since my iBook G4, iPad and iPhone were stolen as part of a break-in last Fourth of July weekend. Settled on a nice mid-2009 MacBook since then.

I also emptied a storage locker that I hadn't visited since 2007 and brought home an iMac G3 DV 400MHz that I've been playing around with. Maxed out the RAM to 1GB and installed AirPort. Fascinating to see it connect to the 'Net and actually load many pages without too much pain. I played a YouTube music video, and though the video was choppy, the audio worked just fine. I mean, it's fifteen years old.

I was into the G3s back then and did all kinds of great and sometimes crazy things with them, but my memory has since faded and I need some help.

I'd partitioned the HDD with OS 10.3.9 Panther and OS 9.2.2. What I'd like to do is junk the OS 9 partition and have the entire disc available for OS X. Looking to upgrade to Tiger, but the retail disc is still very expensive. I still have the OS 9 disks and have backed up any files I want to keep for it in case I want to revert back to OS 9. I'm pretty confident in what I need to do, but I don't want to make a catastrophic error.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Short of trashing the OS 9 partition, is there a way to disable it on startup?

 

[jrsx]

To disable Mac OS 9 on startup, go to Startup disk in Control Panels in the Mac OS 9 Menu, and select Mac Os X 10.3 Panther. That will boot you into Panther as default OS.

 

[gr8tfly]

I honestly don't remember if Panther allowed hot partition changes, but if so, and the OS 9 partition follows the OS X, you should be able to remove it (the OS 9 partition), then expand the OS X partition into the newly created free space.

Otherwise, you'll need to boot on another drive or disc, run Disk Utility from there, and start fresh with a new single partition. IIRC, you can put OS 9 back onto the OS X partition, as it doesn't need to be on a separate one to boot (just make sure to "bless" the OS 9 System Folder, which usually just requires opening and closing the folder).

As far as disabling the current OS 9 partition: if you mean keep it from mounting, then no, not from the Finder anyway. If it's just stuck rebooting to OS 9, using System Preferences > Startup Disk to set OS X as default should work.

 

[skateny]

Thanks for the replies.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the OS 9 partition, and I've already set OS X as the startup disc. I'd like to either get rid of the OS 9 partition or disable it from loading it entirely on startup.

 

[gr8tfly]

Looks like the ability to resize a partition without erasing the disk didn't cut in until 10.5 (according to the Wiki page anyway). I'm not sure when the "hot" partition management (making changes while still booted to the target disk ) kicked in.

 

[Intell]

Some versions of Tiger, I think it was 10.4.3+, have live partition editing in them. It was introduced because of Boot Camp. However, if the drive has the OS 9 drivers installed, the partitions cannot be edited without erasing the whole drive and starting anew. If you want to prevent the OS 9 partition from mounting at boot, you can configure fstab to prevent it from mounting.

 

[skateny]

Thanks Intell. When I tried to edit the /etc/fstab file with sudo pico /etc/fstab/, it then asked for my password. When I tried to enter my password, the terminal wouldn't accept input at the cursor.

 

[jbarley]

Thanks Intell. When I tried to edit the /etc/fstab file with sudo pico /etc/fstab/, it then asked for my password. When I tried to enter my password, the terminal wouldn't accept input at the cursor.

When Terminal asks for a password, there is no indication of anything happening at the cursor when you type it in, this is normal.
Once you hit 'Return' the password is accepted.

 

[skateny]

When Terminal asks for a password, there is no indication of anything happening at the cursor when you type it in, this is normal.
Once you hit 'Return' the password is accepted.

Thanks.

After inputting my password, I get a message that says sudo: pico: command not found

 

[ifrit05]

use nano instead. Nano is a well known pico replacement used in Linux systems and is included in OS X.

 

[skateny]

use nano instead. Nano is a well known pico replacement used in Linux systems and is included in OS X.

Thanks ifrit05.

The nano command didn't work. I'm also having problems locating the UUID identifier for the HD/partitions, so I'm thinking of reinstalling 10.3.

Is it possible to reinstall 10.3 on a disc that runs 10.3.9? And if it is, can I do so without losing my files?

Thanks again.

 

[skateny]

Well, this is new.

The OS 9 partition seemed to be creating conflicts with OS X, at least that was my best guess. I wanted to see whether or not things would function more smoothly by trashing the OS 9 partition. I'm not a Terminal guru, so I needed help in figuring out how to make things work.

What was bothering me most was the inability to use both a wireless mouse and a WiFi booster I had lying around. The AirPort card I installed has limited range and only picked up three signals, none of which I have access to. I get WiFi from work on an Optimum account, and it did not show up in AirPort, where as my MacBook always picks up Optimum and about a dozen other signals.

The help I got here and everything I could find out about it on the 'Net didn't work, and I couldn't gain access to where I needed to be through the Terminal. I already did all the necessary DiskUtility processes, including trying to unmount the OS 9 partition without success. So I tried something simple. I went to the Apple Menu, selected Force Quit, and then "quit" the OS 9 partition.

Everything now works just fine. I restarted with both OS 9 and OS X active, and the problems returned, so I just "quit" OS 9 again and things went back to normal. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I'm happy this solution works.

Thanks again for all the feedback.