dual boot - boot loader?

[derFunk]

Hi guys! I'm new to the forums and I'm also pretty new to Macs in general. I bought a refurbished Mac to learn on before I spend the BIG bucks for a G5 system, and I'm trying to set up the system right the first time. I figure my question can be best answered if I give you my system specs, so here we go:

PowerMac G4 500 (Sawtooth, with AGP slot), upgraded with Sonnet Encore 1GHz
512MB PC100 RAM
Radeon 8500 64MB AGP
onboard 10/100 Ethernet, sound, 56k modem
original 10GB hard drive running OS 9.2.2
new 120GB Maxtor hard drive running OS X 10.3.7
6x DVD-ROM (internal)
52x CD-RW (external, firewire)

Here's my question: is there a way to dual-boot without:

reinstalling any OS's
using System Preferences to choose my boot drive.

May not really be THAT important, but I came from the x86 world where if I dual-booted Linux and Windows, I had a nice menu-driven boot loader where I could choose my OS. If I'm cold booting my Mac and I want to boot into the OS that's currently NOT my default, I have to boot into one OS and swap to the other. I know that I won't be doing much in OS9, but I need to keep it around, as the last firmware update (and there probably won't be another, but just in case) only ran on OS 9, not OS X.

Or am I just lazy looking for another solution?

Thanks in advance!

 

[crazzyeddie]

If you're speaking specifically of OS X and Linux, you need to wipe the drive and reinstall OS X and Linux because you need to reparition the drive. However, the Mac OpenFirmware has a built-in boot loader. Just hold down the option key at startup and you can select from all of your bootable paritions/drives connected to your system.

 

[Westside guy]

I believe Yellow Dog's yaboot essentially does the same thing as grub/lilo does on the x86 side.

 

[cluthz]

 

[mduser63]

Just hold down option when you turn the computer on, and you'll get to a screen where you can select which OS to boot. Also, if OS 9 is your default, but you want to boot into OS X, you can just hold down the X key while turning your computer on. That will boot into OS X one time, but will leave OS 9 as the default for the next time you restart. Unfortunately, there isn't a similar one key shortcut for OS 9, you have to go the option key route for that.

 

[derFunk]

The option key is perfect...actually better than having to go through a boot loader ALL the time...since I won't start up in OS 9 very often. Thanks for all the responses.

 

[Mechcozmo]

The option key is perfect...actually better than having to go through a boot loader ALL the time...since I won't start up in OS 9 very often. Thanks for all the responses.

That's actually a nice computer. It should last quite well. There are Macs running OS X 10.3 even older than that.

Also, press and hold C to start from a CD, and T to start into FireWire Target Disk Mode. (Makes computer a big, expensive, firewire drive)

Do those commands before you hear the startup noise, else they might not work.

"Welcome to the light side of computing."