Any way to install OS 9 on an Aluminum Powerbook?

[Brooklyn]

Has there been any success at all installing OS 9 on an aluminum powerbook? I heard the ROM is coded to not boot 9.2.1.

 

[Macdrone]

Need oem install disk for 9.2. Grey disk or nothing on this one. II have the same issue. Classic will also not work.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

After much trial and error, I finally got a 9.2.2 install up and running on my 800 MHz 17" iLamp (using the NetBoot OS 9 download image as the base.) That install does not boot my first-generation 12" Aluminum PowerBook G4. As far as I know, that iLamp is the last Mac to boot OS 9 (not counting "prior generation Power Mac re-released solely to keep an OS 9 bootable system on the books",) and uses the same graphics chip as the 867 MHz 12" PowerBook.

It has always been my understanding that the Aluminum PowerBooks simply cannot be made to boot into OS 9.

 

[commodorejohn]

Why exactly is that, anyway? Is it a firmware issue, or a lack of driver support in OS9?

 

[Gorgonops]

Both. So far as I'm aware, no one has actually succeeded in getting OS 9 to fully load on an unsupported model. (I seem to recall some thread where someone seemed like they'd at least gotten a boot started after sufficient hackery on some model, it might have been an unsupported eMac or iMac, but I don't remember the details.)

One thing that is worth noting: there's a *very persistent* urban legend that even G5s can run some special version of OS 9 that's buried inside the hardware diagnostics disks, and if only somehow the system file from those disks could be hacked into an OS 9 install everything would magically work. It's been definitively debunked: even though the hardware test environment for whatever reason looks like OS 9 it's not.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, even on the very latest Intel Macs, the hardware test environment STILL looks like Mac OS 9...

 

[ClassicHasClass]

No, a specific model of eMac G4 was the last OS 9 booter (I believe the ATI graphics "Northern Lights" model). Its OS 9 CD will boot any OS 9-compatible Mac, including the MDD.

 

[Macdrone]

The emac disk works you say? Ill try mine.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

That *specific* eMac OS 9 boot disc, yeah. I don't have it in front of me, but search for the part number.

 

[iMac600]

Yeah, even on the very latest Intel Macs, the hardware test environment STILL looks like Mac OS 9...

Pretty certain it only looks like Mac OS 9. It actually runs on the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) for Intel based models and in Open Firmware for the PowerPCs. There wouldn't be anything in there that would allow a bootable OS 9 install on those later PowerPCs unfortunately.

 

[mcdermd]

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To Obi-Wan you listen.

 

[bd1308]

So I was looking for a way to boot OS9 on my Powerbook. The Hardware Test CD is a OS9-looking environment, and it appears to load the same way as OS9, but alas it's simply a script that just launches some OSX-like loader. Not entirely sure why it looks like OS9, but I assure you it's not OS9.

I tried to modify the regular ol' Mac OS ROM file to make the FORTH script boot like OS9 on the OSX box I have, but there is something in the BootROM that literally prevents txbi type files from executing. In Open Firmware, I can make the "Boot OS9" call, and OF starts thinking and then returns something like "This isn't valid".

 

[gsteemso]

That *specific* eMac OS 9 boot disc, yeah. I don't have it in front of me, but search for the part number.

Perhaps my Google-Fu is weak today, but given that there were 4 models of that 1GHz eMac with ATI video and only the first one could boot to 9, I am not finding any answer out there that I am confident in. Could you please dig out that CD and tell us the part number when you get a free moment?