Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OS9 on Powermac G4 MDD needed?

ivnds

ivnds

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 6, 2006
279
0
I got this Powermac G4 MDD [ dual processor 867, 768ram, 80gb] for a real bargain, so i jumped on it! it came with no HDD though, i put in a spare i had and formatted it with my old panther cds. I installed OS 10.3.3 on it and its up and running, i just need to know if OS9 will be necessary, because when i press the option key i get the old OS9 selection screen.
 
So will i always get that purple selection screen when i choose a boot disk? is there a way yo get the gray one from OSX? do i need to update anything?
 
ivnds said:
So will i always get that purple selection screen when i choose a boot disk? is there a way yo get the gray one from OSX? do i need to update anything?
Click to expand...
I'm a bit perplexed as to why your OS X installation on a clean disk would include the option for OS 9 in the boot loader.

It might be a hold over. I've never used OS 9 myself.

Did you ever have OS 9 on the disk previously?
 
I got the computer without a hard drive, so when i turned it on, it showed the purple os screen with a folder and a ? [question mark]. After that i installed OSX and when the computer turns on, i get the gray apple, if i press option to get the startup selection, i get the purple screen, so that's why im confused.
 
You might have installed the OS 9 driver for the partition.

You need to keep this unchecked when you erase the partition.
 
Yes i did select the OS 9 drivers for it, because i thought it might not boot up, so ill repartition and unselect that option.

Also, will i be able to use my bluetooth keyboard and mouse on the bootscreen?

ive paired them when im in OSX but i dont know if theyll work before i get in.
 
ivnds said:
Yes i did select the OS 9 drivers for it, because i thought it might not boot up, so ill repartition and unselect that option.

Also, will i be able to use my bluetooth keyboard and mouse on the bootscreen?

ive paired them when im in OSX but i dont know if theyll work before i get in.
Click to expand...
I'd boot off of the DVD first and check that out before you erase it.
 
Boot off the cds [theyre 3] and then reinstall? im sorry im confused.
 
i know that it doesnt make a difference if its a dvd or cd, what i dont understand is what i need to do, install OS9, run updates then delete partition and install OSX? or jsut delete my current partition and install OSX without the OS9 drivers?
 
When you hold option on boot it is supposed to take you to a purple screen where you can choose what bootable volume/OS you want to boot into. It sounds like that is what you are getting. OS 9 has nothing to do with that, it is just the Open Firmware of the motherboard. Why does it matter, just don't hold option on bootup and it should boot into OS X.

If it is not going straight to OS X, open system preferences and choose Startup Disk. Select your OS install (there will probably be only one), no need to restart.

There is no need to install OS 9 unless you have OS 9 apps you want to use.
 
thanks for the info, it does go straight to OSX from the grey boot screen, only when i press the option key i get the purple screen, i guess this is, like Eldorian said, i have the OS9 drivers installed.

The main issue why i want to understand all this, is because of the firmware update you have to do on some OS9 machines in order to install OSX and because this computer will not recognize my external firewire drive, not even on the finder, my macbook doesnt have this issue, i really want my harddrive to work because i have all my apps there and i want to get leopard and use it for time machine.
 
Nope, doesn't require OS X to be installed, however this was one of the last machines to have OS 9 'Classic' Compatibility.

I believe G5's were unable to run OS 9.

Currently running Leopard on my Dual 800MHZ G4.

Tracer
 
Tracer said:
Nope, doesn't require OS X to be installed, however this was one of the last machines to have OS 9 'Classic' Compatibility.

I believe G5's were unable to run OS 9.

Currently running Leopard on my Dual 800MHZ G4.

Tracer
Click to expand...



Yes, this was the second-to-last apple computer to support os9 boot.
So my hard drive should be recognized... weird.
 
ivnds said:
i know that it doesnt make a difference if its a dvd or cd, what i dont understand is what i need to do, install OS9, run updates then delete partition and install OSX? or jsut delete my current partition and install OSX without the OS9 drivers?
Click to expand...
You don't need OS 9 anymore. You're already capable of running OS X.

ivnds said:
The main issue why i want to understand all this, is because of the firmware update you have to do on some OS9 machines in order to install OSX and because this computer will not recognize my external firewire drive, not even on the finder, my macbook doesnt have this issue, i really want my harddrive to work because i have all my apps there and i want to get leopard and use it for time machine.
Click to expand...
Is the drive an Intel boot drive as well?
 
yes, the External firewire drive was formatted and i installed OSX [to the harddrive] on an intel macbook. However, thats just one partition, i have 2 more on that drive.
 
ivnds said:
yes, the External firewire drive was formatted and i installed OSX [to the harddrive] on an intel macbook. However, thats just one partition, i have 2 more on that drive.
Click to expand...
The entire drive is using the GUID Partition Table. PowerPC Macs can't read it.
 
I have the MDD 867 as well. Originally, the computer came with OS9 and OSX 10.2. It is dual boot capable. I don't believe 10.3 included a full install of OS9, but rather introduced "Classic" emulation. It works well for most apps, but some don't work quite right. For example, Photoshop 6.0 will start, but I don't have any palettes at first. I had to quit and restart the app before everything loaded correctly. If you want true OS9, you will need to get 10.2 system disks and install OS9.

There was a firmware update. My boot ROM is 4.4.8f2. It is running 10.4.10 and I expect 10.5 to be installed sometime next weekend.

Mike
 
Eidorian said:
The entire drive is using the GUID Partition Table. PowerPC Macs can't read it.
Click to expand...

Well that really sucks! So i would need to reformat my hard drive to work with the g4 but then i would loose read/write to the intel one?

on the link kosh66 mentions, apple states the following "You can still use such disks for other storage purposes, swapping the disk back and forth between Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs if desired."

So now im confused. Oh, And sorry if i havent made things clear of what i plan to do with the computer. I don't want OS9, i don't need any OS9 apps, i just wanted to know if i needed to do any updates before installing OSX, but i went ahead and put panther on it, checked software update and no firmware update came up, so i guess im fine. Its just the diisk now.
 
Intel and PowerPC Macs can read drives formatted under the APM (Apple Partition Map) table.

You can only boot an Intel Mac off of a GUID drive.
 
Eidorian said:
Intel and PowerPC Macs can read drives formatted under the APM (Apple Partition Map) table.

You can only boot an Intel Mac off of a GUID drive.
Click to expand...

But Power-PC macs can't read a GUID disk?

If that is correct, i need to reformat then to APM and then ill be fine under both schemes, just no more booting to Intel.
 
ivnds said:
But Power-PC macs can't read a GUID disk?

If that is correct, i need to reformat then to APM and then ill be fine under both schemes, just no more booting to Intel.
Click to expand...
PowerPC Macs cannot read GUID disks.

If you rebuild the table to APM both machines can read it and you could boot PowerPC Macs.

Intel Macs require GUID partition table disks only to boot off of.
 
Eidorian said:
PowerPC Macs cannot read GUID disks.

If you rebuild the table to APM both machines can read it and you could boot PowerPC Macs.

Intel Macs require GUID partition table disks only to boot off of.
Click to expand...

Argh! ok ill have to get another hard drive just to boot for the intel one, i dont want my laptop dying and me not being able to boot and get my things out.

There will be no problem using APM on intel machines right?

I plan on buying a leopard for both computer so i wouldnt want leopard givingme problems for APM.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back