How do I get Classic back? (Long Post)

[pdmazz]

I have a Pismo powerbook running OS 10.1.5 and I was successfully running OS 9.2.2 Classic environment for various apps.

Several days ago, I took an OS 9 crash and I had to do a force kill of the Classic environment. Since then, I have been unable to startup Classic. I get a "you need OS 9.1" to run, please install it.

At this point I have a powerbook working fine on OS 10.1.5 with no Classic and no OS 9 option from the startup selection in OS X.

First, some history, these are the things I have tried to get Classic back:

1. I booted from the OS 9 CD and used the disk utility to verify and repair disk. No dice on this.

2. I then booted from the OS 9 CD and tried to install onto my Macintosh HD. It failed unexpectedly after about 5 mins (some install helper crash), it said to try again. The subsequent try said could not install on target drive "..." and please select drive. Didn't understand this, but I rebooted again from CD and now it says it can not install OS 9 on disk because only OS X is on disk.

3. It was suggested from the Apple OS X support discussion page to copy the OS 9 CD to the HD and try to install from there. I tried that, but when it goes to start the Classic environment, I got an error of "You do not have sufficient permissions to run Classic from /System/Library/CoreServices. Please correct permissions and restart Classic."

My user id is an administrator user and I log in as such automatically upon boot up.

4. I then opened up a terminal and did an "su -" to get on as root (I enabled that a while back) and ran the Classic startup app by hand:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Classic Startup.app/Contents/MacOS/Classic_Startup.
This gives me the error:
There are no localized Classic-specific resources to update the system folder on Macintosh HD. Please select another startup disk.


Where I'm at now:
For grins, I booted from the OS 9.2.1 CD and noticed that under the startup control panel, there were 2 items, the 10.1.5 and another entry that was all garbage characters (I assume this is the corrupted OS 9). Since this is more than I had gotten before, I tried to do the install and sure enough it goes much further than ever before.

HOWEVER, it stops after about 8 mins and says that "Installer needs to create a folder "Desktop Pictures" on disk "Macintosh HD" and this name already exists. Rename or move to another folder and try again"

I used Sherlock to find "Desktop Picures" and moved the 4 items to a separate folder and then I even moved them to the Trash and emptied it.

Each time I retry the install, I get the same error, even though from the OS 9 Sherlock viewpoint, there is nothing named that on the HD.

Where is this "Desktop Pictures" hiding at? How in the world do I get OS 9 back on the system? This seems like it is repairable, though I don't know how. I really don't want to wipe the drive and start completely over again.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Phil St. Romain]

It does sound like there's been some serious corruption of essential OS 9 system files. Who knows where it goes after you get that Desktop Picture puzzle solved.

At this point, the best thing to do would be to back up your OS X folders onto an external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, then erase and reformat your Pismo's hard drive, preferably with one small partition of OS 9/Classic, then reinstall OS 9 and then X. If you were on a separate partition with it, you could just erase it and reinstall it, which is one of the advantages of doing things that way.

[Mikey-San]

Before you nuke and pave the drive (see the Marathon's Story Page for the reference ;-)), give us a bit of info ...

Are you just doing an "install" or are you trying a clean install?


-/-
Mikey-San

[Phil St. Romain]

Here's an update from Macfixit's front page story of the day. Maybe there's something there which can help.

--------

Sean McNamara was having problems getting the Classic System Preference to list his partition containing an OS 9 System Folder as a selectable volume. He tried the suggestions in Apple KB article 106678 (Mac OS X: Classic Will Not Start Up - Mac OS 9 Not Installed or Not Blessed), most of which have also been previously mentioned on MacFixIt, but to no avail.

What finally did work: Go to the ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost folder and locate the file called com.apple.Classic.#####.plist (where # = a sequence of numbers). Delete the file. Sean writes: "A new copy is recreated the next time System Preferences is launched and the Classic pane is called up."

[pdmazz]

I am trying to do just an "install", not a clean install.

Will give the Macfixit ###.plist fix a try when I get home tonight, I'll post the results.

It does seem that the corruption may be more far reaching than just the "Desktop Pictures", but I would really like to salvage since I am pressed for time....though I fear, in the end, I will have to wipe the disk and start over. :-(

thanks for the suggestions!

[Mikey-San]

Well, if you suspect corruption in the System Folder, don't just run the installer straight; clean-install a new System Folder only.

Do you get the same problem when trying to clean-install the system? (Click the first options button in the OS 9 installer and check the "Perform Clean Installation" box.)

It won't delete anything; it will simply rename/move the old System Folder to "Previous System Folder" and install a clean 9 folder in its place.

-/-
Mikey-San

[pdmazz]

Team,

Yea!! My Classic environment is working now along with being able to boot to OS 9.2.2.

The ###.plist thing did not work. I did a "clean install" of OS 9.

I had intentionally not done that before because I thought that "clean install" would wipe out everything on the HD. Now I know.

Now I just have to get the drivers for my Handspring and the HP G85 printer loaded. Hopefully I won't be sent on another adventure.

thanks for the help!

[Mikey-San]

Whatever you do, don't pull them out of the old System Folder. You have no way of knowing if they're damaged past their resource forks. (And even then, you can't be totally certain something isn't up when Norton reports a clean bill of health.)

HP's site will have drivers for whatever model printer you have. Ditto Handspring.

If you wish to keep your old System Folder around (perhaps for a week or two, to make sure there's absolutely no need for anything in it), delete the following files from it (if they're in there):

Finder
System
Mac OS ROM
System Resources
Classic
Classic Support
Classic Support UI
Login
Panels
ProxyApp

Traditionally, it's always been moderately unsafe to have two System Folders on the same partition. Removing these files will turn it into just another folder with stuff in it. :-)


-/-
Mikey-San