How to set up OS 9 Dual-Booting?

[neoelectronaut]

My uncle has an old Flower Power iMac which I recently helped him upgrade to Tiger. (When I say helped I took the disc he bought and dumped it onto my iPod for firewire installation.)

However, we can't seem to get classic mode working with his OS 9 discs, so I come requesting a tutorial on how to get a dual-booting mode operational.

 

[frankblundt]

i didn't think there were any real issues around it. Just install it off the OS9 disks. i think it needs to be 9.22 tho so you need to install it, boot in 9 and update it.
or (probably a lot easier) install Classic off the additional software on the Tiger disks.

 

[neoelectronaut]

i didn't think there were any real issues around it. Just install it off the OS9 disks. i think it needs to be 9.22 tho so you need to install it, boot in 9 and update it.
or (probably a lot easier) install Classic off the additional software on the Tiger disks.

When I try to install Classic off the Tiger install disc it asks for a OS 9 system folder. So naturally, I pop in the OS 9 disc and pull the folder off it. Problem is that now whenever I try to start up classic, it'll try to start up but about 30 seconds later it bails out on me.

 

[RacerX]

What Mac OS was installed originally? And if it was Mac OS X, was he using Classic in it before?

Saving the Mac OS 9.2.2 System Folder in some way (I keep a backup on a CD) is the first thing that you should do before upgrading someone... specially if you are taking them from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X for the first time.

The regular install of Mac OS X does not remove the Mac OS 9 System Folder... but an Erase and Install sure will. And if you didn't make sure that the Mac OS 9 disk drivers were installed on the erased drive, then the Mac OS 9 Install CD isn't going to be able to install on (or see for that matter) that volume if you boot from it.

So, as you seem to already know (at least now), you can drop a 9.2.2 System Folder onto a Mac running Mac OS X and tell Classic to use that. You just have to either find a 9.2.2 System Folder or (if you didn't include the Mac OS 9 disk drivers) start over on his system with Mac OS 9 (bring it up to 9.2.2) taking care this time not to delete anything important during the installation steps for Mac OS X.

Best of luck.