PM6500 and Upgrading to 9.2.2

As is well known, a PowerMacintosh 6500 can not be officially upgraded beyond OS 9.1. I am running a CD clean install of OS 9.1 on my IDE SD card but am having issues with Keychain. Basically, if I boot the PM6500 first completely to desktop and then start up my LC475 and SE/30 (both running 7.6.1) afterwards, file sharing seems to work with all three Macs connecting to each other and my SAN. But, if the LC475 and SE/30 are started first, then when the PM6500 is booted, I get Keychain errors like it says my KeyChain password is wrong but I'm still logged into my Keychain at the desktop and I'm unable to fileshare with the LC475 and SE/30 getting log in errors.

So, I am assuming that in OS 9.1, KeyChain is immature and I might have better luck with OS 9.2.2. So, I downloaded OS9 Helper, Mac OS 9.2.1 Update .smi and Mac OS 9.2.2 Update.smi but when I ran the update, it crashes part way through the 9.2.1 update very consistently. So, I found a System-Folder-image.toast that is apparently a copy of a OS 9.2.2 System File for pre-G3 PowerMacs that can't upgrade using OS9 Helper.

I can't find a program to 'un-toast' the pre-G3 file so I downloaded Toast 5.21 Titanium Toast to unpack the System Folder. But, when I tried to install Toast, it mangled my IDE Boot disk to where it freezes during the boot process. Today, I was able to get Toast installed and working by booting from a BlueSCSI image instead.

So, here is my question (finally!), I protect my BlueSCSI SD card images by copying them over to my M1 MBP periodically in case I have issues. My IDE boot drive is also a 128GB SD card but my M1 MBP won't read the image (it wants to reformat the SD card). So, how do I backup and restore my IDE boot SD card when the only Mac that will read it is the PM6500? The LC475 and SE/30 are SCSI only and the only other IDE I/Fes I have are on Wintel motherboards. I can copy my IDE drive to my SAN but that takes a long time on my PM6500 over the network (10/100 PCI ethernet card). Are there any newer and better solutions? I hate having IDE in my Macs. I can ignore it and just use SCSI, but before I do that, there may be a better solution.

Thank you for reading to the end and your help in this matter. Also, if you have any suggestions on how to update OS 9.1 to 9.2.2 on a PM6500 I'd love to hear that too.

Thanks again,
Gerry

I suggest you continue with Mac IS 9.1 and solve the Keychain issue. I’m really not exactly sure the issue you’re having with Keychain but if it’s a saved network login then temporarily disable it and login manually. As far as 9.2.2 goes, It may solve your keychain problem but it might cause some other problem unexpectedly.

You can also use a RAM disk to boot from on your PM 6500.

Hi Gerry,

I think you need to break down your Mac issues into digestible portions - you’ve a combination of hardware, software, networking issues and more. Could I suggest making each Mac functional standalone before networking and trying unsupported software.

Mac OS 9.2.2 is only really needed for bridging Mac OS X installed on the same machine. You don’t need it to be installed right now.

It sounds like AppleShare on the PM6500 is set up to try to mount shared volumes from the LC475 and SE/30 at startup. If those machines aren't up yet then it can't get to the point of needing to use their saved passwords. I would try moving aside (i.e. renaming) the "AppleShare Prep" file in your Preferences folder inside the System folder, and see if the problem goes away.

I'm happy to report that I've been able to upgrade my Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2.2 and all my login issues are resolved. As I said before, I downloaded a 9.2.2 System folder for Pre-G3 PowerMacs from the Macintosh repository but being compressed I had to install Toast Titanium 5.2.1 to expand it back to normal. I copied the new System Folder over to a bootable 9.1 partition but could not get OS 9.1 to recognize the new system folder.

Today, I noticed that the 9.2 System folder desktop icon had changed to being blessed. So, I booted from it, reloaded the ethernet driver and was able to reconnect to both the SE/30 and LC475. Now if I boot the LC475 and SE/30 up fully before the PM6500, all the file sharing logins work without issue as well as logging into KeyChain without issue. My issues were fixed by Apple in a later OS version.

One area I ran into a bit of a problem was my USB PCI card. With 9.1 I had installed the OS while the USB card plugged in and the OS installed the USB extensions on its own. But this 9.2.2 System Folder didn't have them installed so the OS couldn't see my thumb drive or my USB mouse. I found an Apple community article on line called "kmos9: USB PCI card under Mac OS 9.2.2." It shows which extensions need to be installed for my SIIG USB card to work. After comparing the USB extensions in the 9.1 and 9.22 OSes from that folder, only two files were missing, "USB Software Locator" and "USB Support." Copied them over to the 9.2.2 System Folder and now the Mac OS sees my thumb drive and USB mouse. Yay!

I've finally reached a point where I can put the PM6500 back together as I now have everything working as I wanted. I am content more than I'm happy. I took the challenge and got my first PowerMac up and running.

I could not have done this without the people here patiently answering my newbie questions and helping me find my way through this maze of a computer/Operating System. To all of you THANK YOU and I will do my best to pay you back by answering questions posted that I can answer. Pay it forward.

Thanks again,
Gerry

I know you got the main issue solved and that’s awesome. But I’m back on the backing up drives thing.

Is your SD card formatted HFS+? My setup in my 6500 is identical - IDE to SD adapter, formatted HFS+ and my Mac Studio has no problems reading the partition. It seems APM isn’t the issue but I do know modern macOS has no HFS support (can’t read/mount a lot of classic ISO images either) so that could be it.

I used HFS Standard to format my drives. As I understand it, HFS Standard is more backwards compatible with older Macs which is a concern for me. Now that I have my iMac G5 up and running on 10.5 (for now), I formatted an external SATA SSD drive and HFS Standard was not an option. CRAP!

Gerry

Mac OS Standard (HFS) is required for 8.0 and earlier. 8.1 can boot on a 68040 Mac if the drive is formatted Standard. If you're running 8.0 or 7.x you need Standard, so that's a good option. Otherwise Extended is better because it wastes less space on larger volumes.

Not sure when Apple killed support for vanilla HFS. I have my Quicksilver running its stock software (10.1.2 and 9.2.2) and it's an option there.

GerrySch said:

I used HFS Standard to format my drives. As I understand it, HFS Standard is more backwards compatible with older Macs which is a concern for me. Now that I have my iMac G5 up and running on 10.5 (for now), I formatted an external SATA SSD drive and HFS Standard was not an option. CRAP!

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Use the diskutil command to erase the partition as HFS?

Just a thought; you could always insert the newer 9.2.2 AppleShare files/keychain etc into 9.1. Ive done that before in the past (I can't remember why/what was the reason) but I always use the last version of AppleShare in earlier Systems as low as 7.6.1 due AFS.
Cheers

I had problems finding an SSD large enough that the iMac G5 would connect to. Most of them (Samsung 840 Pro, 256 and 512 GBs) would not be recognised whether the SSD was formatted or not. I settled on a guess buying a PNY 2TB SSD and a Corsair mounting bracket. The PNY was recognised as a valid drive by 10.5 and used Disk Utility to 'clone' my original boot drive and it worked perfectly. Installing the SSD was a fun challenge with it being too high to close the back and it relocated the SSD SATA connectors far enough away that I could not plug them in. It turns out the SSD mounting bracket is double layer and had fins that kept the back door from closing. I had to move the SSD down to the lower level and adjust it's location and I got just enough cable length to reconnect the drive. First question: Why are there more conductors in the SATA power cable than the data cable? I know SATA is serial ATA but why so many power lines? It uses less power than a spinning hard drive. Weird!

The 9.2.2 Mac OS runs well on the G5 as an application and I'm figuring out how to network it to my PM 6500 and LC475. Fun times.

Oh, I bent the fins down on the carrier to close the case. I could have used some duct tape to stick the SSD to the back of the G5 but I wanted something cleaner. On the temperature side, the G5 shut itself off during the several hour drive cloning process without the back on. I' put the back back on and it's been running for the last 24 hours continuously and it's worked with no problems. I'm still repasting the G5 tomorrow and I have both thermal paste and and pads. I found the service manual which doesn't talk about repasting but it shows how to disassemble it.

Presently, the G5 is cloning the 10.5 Boot Disk to an intel 250GB SSD as a precaution.

Thanks for the help everyone,
Gerry

The 9.2.2 Mac OS runs well on the G5 as an application....

Click to expand...

I'm curious what you mean by this. Do you mean running 9.2.2 in SheepShaver on the G5, the Classic environment, or something else?

It's too bad we're unlikely to get native 9.x support for the G5, as that would be a truly awesome environment!

No, I referring to the classic environment included with OS X 10.4 Tiger. It's no longer supported in 10.5 and later.

Well, I've been having problems repasting the G5. I pulled the MBout of the chassis and there are 3 chips that require cooling. The G5 and GPU on the top of the MB and a 3rd chip on the backside of the MB. I remembered that two chips used thermal paste and one used a thermal pad but not was which was which. At the time I didn't think it would matter.

So, I put the thermal pad on the underneath chip (it's sandwiched between the MB and the aluminum backplate) and pasted the upper chips, the GPU and CPU. But after reassembly, the iMac would run for 5 seconds and shutdown. Krap! What to do now?

I had researched before I started this and found a Youtube video of someone repasting and upgrading the hard drive to an SSD on their iMac G5. So I reviewed it again and he showed the GPU got a thermal pad and the other two got thermal paste. So, I ruminated on this for a few days and decided to try it. After repasting the GPU with a thermal pad, and the CPU and 3rd chip repasted, another reassemble and this time it ran at full speed but would not immediately shut off. Progress!

So after trying to figure out how to reset the System Management Unit (SMU), It finally started working normally. Depending upon which generation of iMac G5 you own, there's a button right below the on-board power button to reset the SMU but my MB version doesn't have it. So, I powered the iMac G5 down and pulled the battery and let it sit for a while. In my case, that seemed to fix it. So, my G5 was back up and running and repasted. It is running cooler now.

Finally, I took the 2 TB SSD drive and re-partitioned it into two 1TB drives. I copied my 10.4 and 10.5 OS Xes to the two partitions using Apple's Disk Utilities and now I can easily boot from either OS. So far, everything is working well and I'm satisfied.

Again, thank you for the community stepping up and helping me through this. If you have any further questions, please let me know. Hopefully documenting my experiences will help someone in the future when they are repasting or changing out their system HD for an SSD.

Gerry