Mac OS 9 booting on non-Mac OS 9 bootable machines?

[gopher]

I had a hunch, and don't have a machine to test this.
A friend of mine tells me he made his whole office not Mac OS 9
bootable by making sure the hard drives that are installed do not
have Mac OS 9 drivers installed on those machines. I wonder if you install the Mac OS 9 hard disk drivers, if that would make the so-called non-Mac OS 9 bootable machines bootable into Mac OS 9?

 

[crazzyeddie]

Sorry, good idea, its not that simple though. Apple did something to the firmware or some other aspect of the computers to prevent OS 9 booting.

 

[AppleMatt]

They removed the ability from the BootROM, so it isn't going to happen.

However, does anyone know if it is possible to keep open the classic window? (when you start classic the smiley mac face), and I know its not 'officailly' possible, but someone must be able to do it?

AppleMatt

 

[MacsRgr8]

The only thing making me wonder IF it COULD be possible, is the fact that the Mac Test Pro CD's are Mac OS 9. I know these CD's are also for the new 1 GHz iMac....

 

[Mblazened]

Nope! nothing works, short of altering bootROM

 

[daveg5]

thier is a way

one site i think www.macfixit.com claims thier is a way but you must be a apple service provider to get access to the cds, and it was tested on a osx bootonly imac g4 800.
hopefully this is true or the makers of xpostfacto and os9forever will come out with a hack for the os9 boot only apps and games.
just think a 1.4 970 running deus or alice all native not classic that is.
at the worst you will need to get mac boot roms out of an old mac $50-$100 like the days past when you could get atari, amiga, and pc's to run mac software.
where there is a will there is a way

 

[MacsRgr8]

Re: thier is a way

Originally posted by daveg5
one site i think www.macfixit.com claims thier is a way but you must be a apple service provider to get access to the cds, and it was tested on a osx bootonly imac g4 800.
hopefully this is true or the makers of xpostfacto and os9forever will come out with a hack for the os9 boot only apps and games.

That was what I was talking about! I wonder....

 

[Mblazened]

i AM an apple service provider, i have ACCESS to these discs, and i assure you that they do not work as macfixit has hyped. Supposedly you can alter the system folder included on these cds, but it only kind of works for the imac (craps out on startup) and not at all for the powermac.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by Mblazened
i AM an apple service provider, i have ACCESS to these discs, and i assure you that they do not work as macfixit has hyped. Supposedly you can alter the system folder included on these cds, but it only kind of works for the imac (craps out on startup) and not at all for the powermac.

So there is a OS 9 Mac test Pro CD for iMac (1 Ghz) ? But not for the PowerMacs (FW 800)...?
If these Mac test Pro CD's boot OS 9, it can't be a difficult job making these boot off a OS 9 HD partition. Just copy Mac OS ROM, Finder, System, extensions from the test Pro CD, filled up with the rest of OS 9.2.2....
Could you try it, Mblazened ?

 

[Mblazened]

I've already tried to "splice" together elements from the system folder on the MactestPro CD to make one that will boot new machines. The system folder is different from other OS 9 discs; there are a couple of strange files and the Mac OS ROM version is different...

I didn't have an imac 1ghz machine to try it out on, but i tried using various combinations of spliced system folders to boot a new powermac and.... didn't work. It would probably work on an imac, which likely retain OS 9 boot ROM, but i just don't think its possible on a new Powermac. I've tried everything, short of manipulating the logic board.

 

[gopher]

Originally posted by Mblazened
I've already tried to "splice" together elements from the system folder on the MactestPro CD to make one that will boot new machines. The system folder is different from other OS 9 discs; there are a couple of strange files and the Mac OS ROM version is different...

I didn't have an imac 1ghz machine to try it out on, but i tried using various combinations of spliced system folders to boot a new powermac and.... didn't work. It would probably work on an imac, which likely retain OS 9 boot ROM, but i just don't think its possible on a new Powermac. I've tried everything, short of manipulating the logic board.

Dug around with Google for a bit and found this unlikely post:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Computers/Networking/Macintosh/Q_20552018.html

Comment from goldmanlockey
Date: 03/25/2003 10:50AM PST

Apple recently posted a new file to its private Apple Service Provider web page (accessible only by account-holding Apple technicians and resellers) titled "MacTest Pro for Power Mac G4 (March 2003) Version 7.8.1 supports all iMac (Flat Panel) 15 inch systems only."

The file is a CD image which can be downloaded and burned, then used as a startup disk. Testing in "Mac OS X-only" flat panel iMac system revealed that the image properly booted Mac OS 9.

Users can then copy a stripped-down Mac OS 9 system folder to their hard drive, and select it with the "Startup Disk" System Preferences pane, delivering a Mac OS 9 bootable internal disk.

It appears that a new MacOS ROM file (ver. 9.8.1) allows booting from the image.

Of course, this solution is only readily accessible by Mac service providers, but it shows that Mac OS 9 boots are not impossible on Apple's new machines.

. Note it says PowerMac G4 in addition to Flat Panel iMac. Suggests to me the critter exists somewhere!

 

[daveg5]

cool

good news for those who may have an os9 only app, actually apple had to have a backup just in case some school or company unwiitingly bought a ton of new macs only to find they could not run thier apps.
hopefully panther will remedy this and allow more of the programs that require an os0 boot not to need an os9 boot anymore. classic will probably be upgraded with a version of that file.