[SM] Try, try again ... S900/G3/PCI USB/FireWire card woes

[Barton Brown]

I have a SuperMac S900 (same Tsunami logic board as a PowerMac 
9500/9600) -- that I'm attempting to endow with a third life (its 
second life was the result of installing an OWC Mercury G3/400 ZIF 
daughter card and an Initio Miles UW SCSI controller with level 0 
RAID). I'm running OS9.1. I've now installed a Koutech IOFLEX-7002 
6-port FireWire/USB PCI card. Although I've reset the CUDA switch, 
zapped the PRAM, and tried every other ancient Mac incantation I can 
think of, I get no joy from either the USB or FireWire components of 
the card -- my USB digital camera doesn't mount, nor does my PowerBook 
G4 restarted in "FireWire emulation" mode.

BTW -- I've been told that all these problems would be cleared up if I 
updated to 9.2x; sadly, I cannot get the OS9.2.1 disk I got with Jaguar 
to work -- first off, I cannot get the S900 to boot on the OS 9.2.1 CD 
(or ANY CD, for that matter) using any combination of 
shutdown/restart/"C" key depressed, using the "Startup Disk" Control 
Panel, or keyboard combos to force a system search. My CD-RW drive ( a 
Yamaha 8424S supposedly supported by Apple) has NEVER been able to boot 
from an OS CD, using either Apple's CD driver, or Intechs CD Speed 
Tools driver.

Neither have I ever been able to install a system on the two 68-pin 
Seagate Barracudas I have in a RAID 0 configuration through a Miles 
Initio SCSI UW controller. Apple's disk utilities and OS installers 
refuses to allow me to do anything with the RAID. My main drive is a 
single Barracuda, in normal SCSI mode -- the only mode I've been able 
to mount a Mac OS on.

I've tried to use the OS9.1 and OS9.2 .smi updaters, both from a burned 
CD and right off the desktop; OS9.1 works, OS9.2 doesn't (error: "This 
software won't work on this machine blah blah blah...).

Now I've tried OS9 Helper, and still no joy (same error wnen I try to 
install OS 9.2.x: "This software won't work on this machine blah blah 
blah...).I've also tried installing the "authoring support 1.4.1" .smi, 
but all I get is the Catch-22 that I can't use the USB/FireWire PCI 
card without the Authoring Support fix, and the Authoring Support fix 
won't work because its installer says the S900 doesn't have a 
USB/FireWire card.

Is the architecture of the old Tsunami/ "Storm Surge" 9500 logic board 
the problem? Do I need to install OS 9.2, and if so, where the heck do 
I find it (all I have, in both original CD and doenloaded .smi files, 
is 9.1, 9.2.1 and 9.2.2)? I really need some help here, PLEASE!

TIA

Bart Brown

PS: I emailed Koutech a couple weeks ago -- I have a strong suspicion 
nobody there reads English.

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