To answer several questions: I bought this machine basically to learn about Macs. I also own and use Linux and (unfortunately, due to my job) Windows machines. My interest in OS9 is basically self-educational, not utilitarian. although I like the system. I also installed a decent sound card (m-Audio 2496), and plan to use it for a music workstation; I have lots of older open-reel tapes that I would like to convert to digital, edit to improve the lost high frequencies, and record to CD's.
In my original installation, I had an 80GB PATA HD containing 10.4.11, and a second 250 GB PATA HD with two partitions, one containing OS9, and the other for file storage from 10.4. I used one of the "hacks" reported in these pages to gain 48-bit addressing, and that worked fine. When I booted 10.4, Classic would also boot; I could watch OS9 load during the boot process. The OS9 icon would bounce/flash until the load was completed. Then, I could click on an OS9 app icon, and it would load immediately. I have some old OS9 software, which I admit are mostly curiosities, but they run better on this machine by far than on my G3 iMac. So I installed the SATA card (an Acard AEC-6290M from OWC) with a 160 GB SATA drive with two partitions, the first of which I installed OS9 onto, and the second 10.4. I put the 250 GB PATA drive into an OWC Neptune case, and used that with CCC to transfer the 10.4 install onto the 160 GB's second partition. I then reinstalled OS9 and the apps onto the first partition, because I was beginning to have this error message while it was still running on the PATA drive, and went from there. Afterward, I started having this odd error message about not having a good system file on the startup disk whenever I shut the machine down (it won't sleep because of the USB 2.0 card). So, to be very specific, this is a DA with dual 533 MHz processors, 1.5 GB of RAM, a flashed GeForce 6200 video card (which has been great), a DVD- RAM, 10.4.11, and the above mentioned HD's. It also has a USB 2.0 card and a Sweet Multiport, for what that's worth. Overall, it's a nice system, and one I've enjoyed. I may yet, again for self-educational purposes, install an aftermarket processor. I certainly can't justify it in terms of bang for the buck; it would have been cheaper from the get-go to find a dual 1.8 GHz G5 to start with. But I'm having fun, and that's the issue. I would prefer for the system to behave like it used to, with OS9 kicking in at boot and remaining ready to go. I'm trying to understand why it's behaving the way it is. No, it's not life-threatening; but enquiring minds want to know! Thanks for all your input. For the benefit of others, I'll report back on my findings. - Michael B. in Cincinnati On Dec 27, 4:32 pm, Kris Tilford <[email protected]> wrote: > On Dec 27, 2008, at 11:45 AM, Michael B. in Cincinnati wrote: > > > The funny thing is that if I click on an OS9 app, it loads and runs. > > This isn't funny, this is normal behavior for Classic applications > under OS X. > > > It just won't load at boot like it used to. > > I'm still not following you here. > > I think you may be saying "I'm booted in OS X, but when I click on an > OS 9 app instead of seeing the OS 9 (Classic) boot process window > open, I'm having the OS 9 app load and run directly? If this is the > case, then you've got Classic set up to load automatically on boot and > not show the boot window. This means that Classic is already running > with when you click on the OS 9 app. You'd adjust this behavior in > System Preferences>Classic. You'd need to uncheck the boxes "Start > Classic when you login" and "Hide Classic when starting" under the > "Start/Stop" tab. > > If you are trying to boot OS 9 directly either by selecting it in > Startup Disk, using the Option key selection, or holding the "9" key > at startup, and it's not booting, this could be many things. Booting a > SATA PCI card HD is dependent upon firmware on the PCI card, not all > SATA PCI can boot in Macs. The firmware on the card might not support > OS 9 booting, it may be OS X only? If your OS 9 and OS X are on the > same partition (I believe yours are cloned together?) then the OS 9 > System can become unblessed and not boot. Older versions of Carbon > Copy Cloner have a "Bless" function for blessing the System folder, > but I'm not sure if the newest CCC has this function? You'll need to > be sure the OS 9 System is blessed to be bootable. > > I think the time of OS 9 and Classic is over. You should look for a > native OS X program to replace whatever OS 9 programs you're still > using. OS 9 and Classic are more burden than any PATA HD. > > If you're trying to squeeze out performance, I'm very dubious that not > using the PATA bus will result in any appreciable performance gain? > For performance, I'd suggest you get two identical SATA HDs and stripe > them in a RAID 0 set, then backup this set using a single internal or > external HD (use the PATA bus if necessary, although a Firewire > external SATA based HD may be cheaper than a large PATA HD?). The > single backup HD needs to be twice the size of the two RAID set > individual HDs. To get the full speed advantage of RAID 0 each HD in > the pair needs its own dedicated bus, you can't place both sharing the > same bus. RAID 0 can nearly double the HD access speed, but you need > reliable backup. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
