Weird SSD boot issue iMac G3 SSD

[squelch41]

I have a 450MHz imac g3.
I've just swapped out the original-to-me 160Gb IDE HDD for an SSD + SATA-IDE adapter.
Drive is 256Gb.

Drive initialized fine - mac os 10.4 works absolutley fine.
BUT.. mac os 9.2.2 is being weird!

It boots but spends 15 secs at start up with the floppy icon and ! flashing icon as though it cant identify a boot disk. Then it starts to boot into os 9 and is fine from then on.
It's annoying!!

I've tried the following:

Having OS9 as the first partition on the drive (with OSX as the 2nd) (~40gb for os 9, 80gb for osx)
Having OS9 as the second partition (with OSX as the 1st) (~40gb for os 9, 80gb for osx)
Having OS9 as a sole partition (40Gb partition)
Initialising the drive on the G3 mac and also a mac mini g4 (that sees the full 256Gb)
Imaging the old drive to the new drive.
Wiping the drive completely and doing a fresh install of os 9 only.
Initialising the drive from the OS9 install cd rather than osx
Clearing the NVRAM in openfirmware

I am only using 1/2 the drive so am not above the 128Gb limit (though right at the begining, I did create 4 partitions and the G3 could see them all - I've wiped it many times since!)

I am guessing my only option is to a) put up with it b) change to a different SSD eg a 120gb model - but if it hwas hardware incompatibility I would expect OSX to have issues too?

It's just weird and i'd like to understand why OS9 takes a while to actually spot the install

 

[mac27]

I have a similar SSD configuration in my 500 MHz Indigo slot-loader, and can confirm that booting from OS 9 behaves similarly. After about 30 seconds of the disk with flashing question mark, it boots up just fine every time. I've never minded it (I always just considered it part of the boot-up process I guess), but it is slightly unusual I suppose. This is with a much smaller (64 GB) drive as well.

My best guess is that it has something to do with OS 9 not being optimized for drives this large, or something related to delays with these modern drives being able to tell OS 9 about what they are and that they're bootable. I'll let someone more knowledgable correct me or provide further insight.

 

[Byrd]

You're on the right track, it's the SSD not conforming to the older IDE standards usually the later model it is the more issues you can have.

Also found similar issues with an SSD on an iMac G3 500; OS 9 was downright weird, slow startup and eventually data corruption took place. OS X was similar, faster boot but odd issues and corruption eventually refusing to boot. Ended up putting in a later model 120GB spinning rust and been happy. Keep experimenting with older SATA1 SSD drives.

 

[Kevin35383]

I got the same issue by using a cheap IDE to SATA adapter. Every time the floppy icon flashes 14 times before booting into the OS 9.2. After I changed to StarTech IDE to SATA, the problem actually solved. The booting process is butter smooth now.

 

[joevt]

Check the nvram to verify that the boot device is set to the drive and partition that contains OS 9? I think the Startup Disk preferences panel in Mac OS X should change the nvram parameters correctly. Check nvram -p to see how it changes depending on what is selected in Startup Disk preferences panel.

Debug the multi-boot-menu to see what it's searching for?