My main vintage Mac for many years has been this wonderful G4 MDD
1.25Ghz (single processor, not the dual processor version). As the last
Mac capable of natively booting OS9, it is an absolute beast of a
machine for the system (in fairness, OS9 runs great on a lot of older,
slower machines, too; I had a Snow iMac G3 that was a beautiful OS9
experience), and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

I have had cause to reinstall OS9 to it twice this year, and each time
it has been painful. The first time was a long overdue reinstall to
tidy up a decade's worth of careless use, so the pain felt worth it in
the end, but the most recent (this week) was to fix a major system
error caused by a simple mistake, and I became quite frustrated at what
a nuisance it is to get OS9 reinstalled.

Some context; I do not have OSX installed on this machine, nor do I
want to have it on here. I have a Sonnet Tempo SATA PCI card that has
two 128GB SSDs hooked to it, one of which is carved into three
partitions, and one of those partitions is my OS9 boot drive. When
everything is running smoothly, this results in a lightning-fast and
silent machine (I replaced all the internal fans a long time ago with
Silenx ones).

There is no OS9 retail CD that will boot this machine. The original
install media that came with it (which I do not have) was a 4 CD set,
with an OS9 disk image on one of them; that is on the Garden at
<http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-powermac-g4-mdd>.

To use that disk image, you need to be booted into OSX, which I don't
have. OK, I figured, the first time I had to reinstall, how about I use
my iMac G5 and have the MDD in FireWire Target Mode? No dice, Target
Mode would not see the SSDs on the PCI card. I went Googling for any
other way of doing it but eventually I dug out an old hard drive from
my parts bin that I knew had some early flavour of OSX on and stuck
that in the MDD.

It booted, painfully slowly, to a very congested install of Panther
(clearly, the machine I had pulled that drive from belonged to a web
designer 20 years ago and he was sloppy as hell when it came to
managing his workspace...) but I was able to download the OS9 dmg,
mount it, and drag/drop the contents to the formatted SSD boot
partition. Setting that as the startup disk and restarting, I was
pleased to see OS9 booting (there was some further messing around with
disabling some video card extensions to actually make it work properly,
but that was simple enough).

Second reinstall came round this week and I knew the process, but it
was still a hellish drag to open up the computer, connect the OSX
drive, boot to that (very slowly again... I subsequently did a fresh
install of Tiger to it so I have a cleaner OSX to boot into in the
future), and then mount and drag and drop. There has to be a simpler
way, right? I can't find any hacked bootable 9.2.2 installer that would
make my life simpler and negate the need for OSX. Anyone have any
ideas or can point me in the right direction?

I had a similar pantomime when reinstalling OS9 to an iMac G4 a few
years ago, but at least that did have bootable (albeit
machine-specific) OS9 media available that I was eventually able to
source. I get why Apple supplied install media tailored for each
machine, but it's a monumental pain in the arse, life would be so much
simpler if they'd continued to release generic retail versions that
would work on all machines.

On 2024-10-04 07:07:00 +0000, scole said:
>
> My main vintage Mac for many years has been this wonderful G4 MDD
> 1.25Ghz (single processor, not the dual processor version). As the last
> Mac capable of natively booting OS9, it is an absolute beast of a
> machine for the system (in fairness, OS9 runs great on a lot of older,
> slower machines, too; I had a Snow iMac G3 that was a beautiful OS9
> experience), and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
>
> I have had cause to reinstall OS9 to it twice this year, and each time
> it has been painful. The first time was a long overdue reinstall to
> tidy up a decade's worth of careless use, so the pain felt worth it in
> the end, but the most recent (this week) was to fix a major system
> error caused by a simple mistake, and I became quite frustrated at what
> a nuisance it is to get OS9 reinstalled.
>
> Some context; I do not have OSX installed on this machine, nor do I
> want to have it on here. I have a Sonnet Tempo SATA PCI card that has
> two 128GB SSDs hooked to it, one of which is carved into three
> partitions, and one of those partitions is my OS9 boot drive. When
> everything is running smoothly, this results in a lightning-fast and
> silent machine (I replaced all the internal fans a long time ago with
> Silenx ones).
>
> There is no OS9 retail CD that will boot this machine. The original
> install media that came with it (which I do not have) was a 4 CD set,
> with an OS9 disk image on one of them; that is on the Garden at
> <http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-powermac-g4-mdd>.
>
> To use that disk image, you need to be booted into OSX, which I don't
> have. OK, I figured, the first time I had to reinstall, how about I use
> my iMac G5 and have the MDD in FireWire Target Mode? No dice, Target
> Mode would not see the SSDs on the PCI card. I went Googling for any
> other way of doing it but eventually I dug out an old hard drive from
> my parts bin that I knew had some early flavour of OSX on and stuck
> that in the MDD.
>
> It booted, painfully slowly, to a very congested install of Panther
> (clearly, the machine I had pulled that drive from belonged to a web
> designer 20 years ago and he was sloppy as hell when it came to
> managing his workspace...) but I was able to download the OS9 dmg,
> mount it, and drag/drop the contents to the formatted SSD boot
> partition. Setting that as the startup disk and restarting, I was
> pleased to see OS9 booting (there was some further messing around with
> disabling some video card extensions to actually make it work properly,
> but that was simple enough).
>
> Second reinstall came round this week and I knew the process, but it
> was still a hellish drag to open up the computer, connect the OSX
> drive, boot to that (very slowly again... I subsequently did a fresh
> install of Tiger to it so I have a cleaner OSX to boot into in the
> future), and then mount and drag and drop. There has to be a simpler
> way, right? I can't find any hacked bootable 9.2.2 installer that would
> make my life simpler and negate the need for OSX. Anyone have any
> ideas or can point me in the right direction?
>
> I had a similar pantomime when reinstalling OS9 to an iMac G4 a few
> years ago, but at least that did have bootable (albeit
> machine-specific) OS9 media available that I was eventually able to
> source. I get why Apple supplied install media tailored for each
> machine, but it's a monumental pain in the arse, life would be so much
> simpler if they'd continued to release generic retail versions that
> would work on all machines.

The machine-specific install discs are those that ship with the
computer, but there are also machine-independent retail discs for those
upgrading their existing computers version of Mac OS.

In article <041020240707006057%vintageapplemac@gmail.com>, scole
<vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Second reinstall came round this week and I knew the process, but it
> was still a hellish drag to open up the computer, connect the OSX
> drive, boot to that (very slowly again... I subsequently did a fresh
> install of Tiger to it so I have a cleaner OSX to boot into in the
> future), and then mount and drag and drop. There has to be a simpler
> way, right? I can't find any hacked bootable 9.2.2 installer that would
> make my life simpler and negate the need for OSX. Anyone have any
> ideas or can point me in the right direction?

Well, just had to reinstall OS9 to this machine *again*... Was fine
yesterday evening but when I booted it this morning, folder with
question mark appeared. Booted again holding option key, but the OS9
boot drive did not appear to select. Went through the usual steps, zap
PRAM etc, to no avail.

Rather than open the machine up and connect that OSX drive I have, I
thought I'd boot from my Tiger retail DVD and have a look using Disk
Utility. The OS9 partition was greyed out, so tried to verify and
repair it but got an "invalid key length" error, whatever that means.

But then I had a brainwave; I had put the OS9 .dmg onto one of the
other SSD partitions, so could I mount that using the retail DVD tools
and then restore it to the OS9 partition as a fresh install? Turns out
I could! Within a few minutes I was booting into a virgin 9.2.2,
again...

So, I have indeed found a marginally simpler way of installing OS9 to
an G4 MDD 1.25Ghz!

In article <vdpn42$ce1q$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
<YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
>
> The machine-specific install discs are those that ship with the
> computer, but there are also machine-independent retail discs for those
> upgrading their existing computers version of Mac OS.

Not for OS9 for this MDD, or so I've read on the web anywhere I've
looked; all the info I've found is that the only official release of
9.2.2 that's right for this machine is in the .dmg on one of the
set-of-4 install CDs that shipped with it.

And even that image isn't an actual bootable installer, it's more like
a hard disk back-up image and the intent is to use Disk Utility in OSX
to "restore" the back-up to a partition and that's how you get OS9 onto
the G4 MDD 1.25Ghz. I was hoping that some bright spark might have
hacked a bootable version of it I could burn to CD, but I didn't find
such a thing when I was looking recently.

On 2024-10-12 05:12:03 +0000, scole said:
> In article <vdpn42$ce1q$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
> <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
>>
>> The machine-specific install discs are those that ship with the
>> computer, but there are also machine-independent retail discs for those
>> upgrading their existing computers version of Mac OS.
>
> Not for OS9 for this MDD, or so I've read on the web anywhere I've
> looked; all the info I've found is that the only official release of
> 9.2.2 that's right for this machine is in the .dmg on one of the
> set-of-4 install CDs that shipped with it.
>
> And even that image isn't an actual bootable installer, it's more like
> a hard disk back-up image and the intent is to use Disk Utility in OSX
> to "restore" the back-up to a partition and that's how you get OS9 onto
> the G4 MDD 1.25Ghz. I was hoping that some bright spark might have
> hacked a bootable version of it I could burn to CD, but I didn't find
> such a thing when I was looking recently.

You may well be right about 9.2.2 specifically, since that is a minor
update. The retail CD would likely have been 9.2 and then you're meant
to use updaters.

I'm not sure about that particular model. It's possible that it wasn't
designed to boot in MacOS 9, so the "installer" is only for installing
the Classic environment to use under MacOS X to run older programs.

You could try one of these custom-made bootable installers (the second
one is a newer version):
<https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal>
<https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal-install-2014>

In article <ved84n$31rs$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
<YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

> On 2024-10-12 05:12:03 +0000, scole said:
> >
> > Not for OS9 for this MDD, or so I've read on the web anywhere I've
> > looked; all the info I've found is that the only official release of
> > 9.2.2 that's right for this machine is in the .dmg on one of the
> > set-of-4 install CDs that shipped with it.
> >
> > And even that image isn't an actual bootable installer, it's more like
> > a hard disk back-up image and the intent is to use Disk Utility in OSX
> > to "restore" the back-up to a partition and that's how you get OS9 onto
> > the G4 MDD 1.25Ghz. I was hoping that some bright spark might have
> > hacked a bootable version of it I could burn to CD, but I didn't find
> > such a thing when I was looking recently.
>
> You may well be right about 9.2.2 specifically, since that is a minor
> update. The retail CD would likely have been 9.2 and then you're meant
> to use updaters.
>
> I'm not sure about that particular model. It's possible that it wasn't
> designed to boot in MacOS 9, so the "installer" is only for installing
> the Classic environment to use under MacOS X to run older programs.

This particular MDD variant is a native-OS9 booter; it's the "single
CPU" version of the 1.25Ghz, released alongside the Dual 1.42Ghz MDD to
provide continued native OS9; I think the story at the time was that
there was quite an uproar in the design/photography/media sector that
the 2002 (or was it 2003?) PowerMacs were OSX only (Classic Mode
disregarded), which at that point therefore suddenly rendered a lot of
industry-standard software temporarily defunct, so Apple put this
machine on the market to retain OS9 nativity and made good sales volume
out of it.

> You could try one of these custom-made bootable installers (the second
> one is a newer version):
> <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal>
> <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal-install-2014>

Oh, huzzah! Thanks, man, these look promising. I will investigate. I
did search the Garden for variations of "MDD OS9 Bootable" but never
saw these, so much appreciation for flagging them up to me.

In article <121020241332264707%vintageapplemac@gmail.com>, scole
<vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <ved84n$31rs$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
> <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
>
> > On 2024-10-12 05:12:03 +0000, scole said:
> > >
> > > Not for OS9 for this MDD, or so I've read on the web anywhere I've
> > > looked; all the info I've found is that the only official release of
> > > 9.2.2 that's right for this machine is in the .dmg on one of the
> > > set-of-4 install CDs that shipped with it.
> > >
> > > And even that image isn't an actual bootable installer, it's more like
> > > a hard disk back-up image and the intent is to use Disk Utility in OSX
> > > to "restore" the back-up to a partition and that's how you get OS9 onto
> > > the G4 MDD 1.25Ghz. I was hoping that some bright spark might have
> > > hacked a bootable version of it I could burn to CD, but I didn't find
> > > such a thing when I was looking recently.
> >
> > You may well be right about 9.2.2 specifically, since that is a minor
> > update. The retail CD would likely have been 9.2 and then you're meant
> > to use updaters.
> >
> > I'm not sure about that particular model. It's possible that it wasn't
> > designed to boot in MacOS 9, so the "installer" is only for installing
> > the Classic environment to use under MacOS X to run older programs.
>
> This particular MDD variant is a native-OS9 booter; it's the "single
> CPU" version of the 1.25Ghz, released alongside the Dual 1.42Ghz MDD to
> provide continued native OS9; I think the story at the time was that
> there was quite an uproar in the design/photography/media sector that
> the 2002 (or was it 2003?) PowerMacs were OSX only (Classic Mode
> disregarded), which at that point therefore suddenly rendered a lot of
> industry-standard software temporarily defunct, so Apple put this
> machine on the market to retain OS9 nativity and made good sales volume
> out of it.
>
> > You could try one of these custom-made bootable installers (the second
> > one is a newer version):
> > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal>
> > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal-install-2014>
>
> Oh, huzzah! Thanks, man, these look promising. I will investigate. I
> did search the Garden for variations of "MDD OS9 Bootable" but never
> saw these, so much appreciation for flagging them up to me.

Forgive me if you've already talked about this, but MacOS9Lives have a
bootable 9.2.2 installer ISO that will boot on unsupported G4 Macs.
It's commonly used for installing on G4 Mac Minis. On which I am now
typing my first Usenet post in over two decades!

http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads

Cheers
Ferg

In article <151020241030148124%ferg@scotgate.org>, Chris Lindley
<ferg@scotgate.org> wrote:

> In article <121020241332264707%vintageapplemac@gmail.com>, scole
> <vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <ved84n$31rs$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
> > <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
> >
> > > You could try one of these custom-made bootable installers (the second
> > > one is a newer version):
> > > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal>
> > > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal-install-2014>
> >
> > Oh, huzzah! Thanks, man, these look promising. I will investigate. I
> > did search the Garden for variations of "MDD OS9 Bootable" but never
> > saw these, so much appreciation for flagging them up to me.
>
> Forgive me if you've already talked about this, but MacOS9Lives have a
> bootable 9.2.2 installer ISO that will boot on unsupported G4 Macs.
> It's commonly used for installing on G4 Mac Minis.

I have downloaded the "2014" iso from the Garden linked upthread, which
apparently originated from MACOS9Lives. I will burn to a CD and test it
soon!

>On which I am now
> typing my first Usenet post in over two decades!

Welcome back!

In article <191020240738327322%vintageapplemac@gmail.com>, scole
<vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <151020241030148124%ferg@scotgate.org>, Chris Lindley
> <ferg@scotgate.org> wrote:
>
> > In article <121020241332264707%vintageapplemac@gmail.com>, scole
> > <vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > In article <ved84n$31rs$1@dont-email.me>, Your Name
> > > <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > You could try one of these custom-made bootable installers (the second
> > > > one is a newer version):
> > > > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal>
> > > > <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-universal-install-2014>
> > >
> > > Oh, huzzah! Thanks, man, these look promising. I will investigate. I
> > > did search the Garden for variations of "MDD OS9 Bootable" but never
> > > saw these, so much appreciation for flagging them up to me.
> >
> > Forgive me if you've already talked about this, but MacOS9Lives have a
> > bootable 9.2.2 installer ISO that will boot on unsupported G4 Macs.
> > It's commonly used for installing on G4 Mac Minis.
>
> I have downloaded the "2014" iso from the Garden linked upthread, which
> apparently originated from MACOS9Lives. I will burn to a CD and test it
> soon!

Good luck with the install! I went and gave away my trusty MDD a few
years ago. I really regret that as they are such good looking machines!
>
>
> >On which I am now
> > typing my first Usenet post in over two decades!
>
> Welcome back!

Many thanks!

Cheers
Ferg

scole <vintageapplemac@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, just had to reinstall OS9 to this machine *again*...

A bit late in the game, but this being usenet...

Have you thought of getting an msata - ide adapter and an msata ssd, and
put an emergency system installation on it? That would save you throwing
in spinning rust after a failure, it would be a lot faster, and, hanging
off the built-in ide, it would even be available in target disk mode.

I have a remotely similar case where an Atto nubus scsi adapter in a
Quadra 650 will not flush dirty buffers on reset, leaving the system
volume unbootable. The fallback is a minimal Macintosh System
installation on a different partition, from which I will have to run
DiskWarrior (highly recommended) to fix the main boot volume.

Cheerio,
Hauke

--
Now without signature.