[nybbles]

OK, now don't flame me for not knowing.

I was a huge Mac user up until, my school forced me, because nothing would be compatible to switch over to the other side of Windoze.

Even though, I won't be getting rid of my Windoze machine, I do wish to get a new Mac. I still have some programs (mostly games) from my old Mac (it was a 68K, good ole days)...

I was wondering if it is possible to have OS X.3 Panther and OS 9.2 running on different partitions, in the ability to boot using a menu, kinda like dual booting a Linux and Windows using separate partitions...

I know that OS X.2 and 9.2 can do this, but I've heard OSX.3 and OS 9.2 can't do this...

I have install disks for all 3, so would it be possible to install 9.2 on one partition, and X.3 on another and still have it boot?

What if I installled 9.2 on one partition, and then 10.2 on another. Then upgrade 10.2 to 10.3? Would that work?

Or am I just dreaming, cuz, it just won't happen.

If anyone knows how to get 9.2 and X.3 to work (not simultaneously, I know X.3 doesn't have Clasic mode) but so that I could boot into one or the other, please post.

Thanx!

[Developer]

10.3 does have Classic mode and it works on all Macs.

The current Macs can not boot into 9.2 however. If you want to boot into OS 9 you'd have to purchase a PowerMac G4 which is still available at the Apple Store, or purchase a used Mac.

But Classic mode is available on all Macs on 10.3. And it's not going away soon. And booting in OS 9 is not limited by 10.3. It doesn't work on current Macs but on older ones.

[Millennium]

You can't do this on the current generation of Macs, since they can't boot OS9.2 at all. That's the only limitation; OS10.3 can dual-boot fine if it's on a Mac capable of dual-booting.

I believe that you need to be using multiple partitions if you want the boot menu to work properly, since it can only detect one OS per partition. Other than that there are no technical hurdles to running them from the same partition, though from an aesthetic standpoint both filesystems will be cleaner that way.

[nybbles]

Thanks for the quick replies!

Now let's say I can get a hold of an older Mac G4.

OK, so if I wanted to install OS 9.2 and X.3 on separate partitions, would the X.3 install disk have the ability to create those partitions and how would I go about setting this up....

I assume have X.3 install disk partition drives. Install 9 on the first drive and X.3 on the other.

Now how do I switch between them during boot?

If I get a newer Mac, obviously dual-booting won't work, SOOO....

Do I need to have OS 9 on the drive BEFORE installing X.3, or will a clean install of X.3 have the classic stuff in there.

I messed around with X.2 last year on a friend's computer, I got the impression that 9.2 had to be completely installed for the "classic" stuff to work. Is this not the case?

Thanks again, for your responses.

[ntsc]

is there reason you can't use Classic?

[nybbles]

probably no reason why I couldn't....

Just want to scope out all my options.

I'll probably be using the mac for video editing with Final Cut...

But I figure, if I can salvage anything from my old 68K machine (unlikely) it would be cool.

I figure at this point, I'll probably just use Classic, and if it don't work, oh well..

Once again, thanks for all your input.

Now the question, where to get the money for the mac, lol!

[Rickster]

It doesn't really matter which order you install them in... either OS install disc can do the partitioning, so you can start with either. Nor does it matter which partition has which OS (unless you're installing on a beige G3, which has requirements about bootable partitions being in the first 8 GB of a drive).

As for how to switch: AFAIK there's no way to make a Mac always boot to an OS menu. On Macs released since August 2000, you can hold down the Option/Alt key while booting to get the graphical OS-chooser menu Millennium mentions. On all Macs, you can also use Startup Disk (a control panel in OS 9, and a System Preferences pane in OS X) to choose which OS will be used on the next boot.

Just to clarify: newer Macs (IIRC, models released since January 2003) can't boot OS 9, but they can still be set up for dual-boot schemes involving multiple OS X partitions (or Darwin or various Linuxes).