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Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Eric Jervis
I needed to use my OS9 hard drive today. Chose it in the System prefs, restarted, and it got half way through the procedure and gave me a flashing rectangle showing only a restart button in the right hand bottom corner, and an arrow which did not respond to the mouse. Pressing Alt Command Esc did nothing, and pressing the Restart button below the Power button on my G4 merely brought me back to the original crash scenario. I restarted keeping my finger on the D key and this time it started up in Tiger on this drive.
When I looked at the Prefs it said it would start up on the OS9 drive, so I changed that.
What have I done? I zapped the PRAM before my holiday, (I forget why), and got some pretty strange results relating to the on-screen size of things. Have I zapped myself in the foot?

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Euan Williams
Are you using the original OS9 on original partition? or as Classic within OSX? Is it OS9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.2.2?

May also be due to partition schemes, see Disk Utility Help (search for GUID), or Apple's knowledgebase, eg:

"If the installer won't let you install Mac OS X on a hard drive and gives as the reason "Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume," the drive may not have the partition scheme that the Installer requires. The needed partition scheme depends on the type of processor in your Mac. The installer installs Mac OS X for Intel-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the GUID partition scheme. It installs Mac OS X for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers only on drives with the Apple partition scheme."
"To check the external drive's partition scheme, open Disk Utility, select the drive in the list, choose File > Get Info, and look for the "Partition Type." If you can't see the "Partition Type," you may have selected the volume instead of the disk. (Drives are flush left, with their volumes indented to the right below them.)"

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Eric Jervis
Euan,
It's OS9.2.2 on a separate partition; powerPC G4/450 dual with two internal hard drives, the smaller one of which is partitioned OS9/OSX; been running fine for about a year; 'This drive' is the larger one with no partitions, running Tiger 10.4.11.

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Euan Williams
Eric,
been delving through my distant memories of sorting pre-OSX. On a simplistic basis I would assume system corruption for some reason (not at all necessarily related to zapping PRAM). Cure: (you know it) backup and re-install on an erased and properly re-formatted partition. I have all sorts of pre-OSX utilities if you want to go further, but you probably have these as well.

After zapping PRAM several preferences need to be reset in OS9, including date and time, monitor (I think).

I used to run OS9 in Classic mode within OSX where it seemed to be much more reliable. Classic Preferences offers a range of techniques to fix troublesome systems, such as extensions off, OS9 permissions repair and OS9 desktop rebuild.

Otherwise it's maybe one of the "The First Six" (John Bradley) -- plus three (Maria Langer):
Restart (can't); Rebuild the desktop; restart with extensions disabled (magic ! ); Trash Application prefs; Zap PRAM (tried that); Diagnostic software incl. Symantec Utilities; Reinstall troubled app; reinstall System; Upgrade soft or hardware.
Can't remember the keystrokes for some of these, but could dig them up quite easily.

Are you sure your "OS9" drive is functionally ok? Have you tested your RAM with your very original Apple test software, or reseated it -- including video ram?

Reinstall OS 9.2.2 "clean" but with all your data in place and see how you get on. Then work from there, reinstalling "clean" any apps you need.
Good luck, Euan.

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Eric Jervis
Euan,
Thank you v. much. I've been considering my options. I don't want to reinstall the lot, as it takes forever.
Certain things should be remembered.
I'm not half as clever as you think.
In the physical sense the drive is OK, as it will start up on the OSX partition.
All that is on the OS9 partition is Pagemaker 6.5 and Photoshop 4; it has never been used on the internet.
Two of your suggestions intrigue me though: Can you remind me how to restart with extensions disabled, and then rebuild the desktop?
Thanks,
Eric

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Euan Williams
Eric,
comments interleaved below:
~ I happily maintain that everyone is intelligent in one way or another!
In the physical sense the drive is OK, as it will start up on the OSX partition.
~ Yessss, but there could be a disc surface problem just on the OS9 partition disc area... Disk First Aid for OS9 would find these.
All that is on the OS9 partition is Pagemaker 6.5 and Photoshop 4; it has never been used on the internet.
~ Extremely unlikely there is any virus problem for OS9. The only one I ever had was from an early Quark Xpress installer.
Two of your suggestions intrigue me though: Can you remind me how to restart with extensions disabled, and then rebuild the desktop?
~ within OS9 itself,
Rebuilding the OS9 desktop should be your priority (it's easier!): hold down > Command < + > Option < at startup.

To disable all extensions and control panels, press > Shift < at startup. If OS9 starts up OK this is where the problem is.
There are utilities to do this selectively which I can dig up and email to you if you need one.
This can be a very miserable investigation, and experience suggests that a fresh install on an erased partition
(with OS9 Driver install option checked) is likely to bring a more rapid and certain solution.
Best to disable in batches to narrow down the problem.

You can do these things via Classic Preferences dialogues if you are running OS9.1 or 9.2 within OSX.
Best,
Euan.

Re: Mystery start-up crash

Avatar Eric Jervis
Euan,
Oh, what joy to see the OS9 desktop again! Rebuilding the desktop didn't work though. Restart + Shift did the trick; Disk First Aid took about five seconds to mend it! I can never come to the meetings, (too far away), but the advice I get from you chaps is well worth the membership fee.
I'm going to print this out in case the problem should ever recur.
Thank you,
Eric
 
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