[Plant7575]

I am upgrading from an G3 Imac (running OS 9.2.2) to a G5 Imac, running OS X (10.3?). I am having a problem getting my old OS 9 applications to run in OS X. I have installed OS 9 from the CD that came with the G5 Imac, and copied some of the program over from the old to the new computer -- In the Applications (OS9) folder -- using a ZIP disk.

But funny things are happening to my OS 9 applications. Some of the application files are now labelled as "Unix Executable File". Others are labelled as "Document". Most of them are now 0 or 4 KB in size. When I double-click on the application files, I get either a blank window or the message that "No application has been specified for this document" -- or something like that.

I also noticed that when the files are on the Zip disk and the Zip is in the G5, the files are idenfidied as indicated above. If I put the Zip back into the G3, the files are correctly idendified an applications and are full sized.

It seems obviuos that the G5 is not recognizing these applications as OS 9 and not booting OS9. What am I doing wrong?

Doug

[CharlesS]

Was the Zip disk PC formatted? And did you copy the applications onto it using OS 9?

If so, reformat the Zip as a Mac-formatted disk and try it again. OS 9 and OS X both have ways of encoding Mac files so they don't lose the resource forks on PC-formatted disks, but the two methods are not compatible.

[Plant7575]

Thanks for the help. That was exactly the problem. Got it working now.

However, reformatting the ZIP disk was an adventure. I tried to reformat it on the G3 (OS9), but the Erase Disk dialog box did not offer the Mac format as an option -- only DOS.

So I tried reformatting it on the G5 (OSX). Now I was presented with three different MAC options. Not knowing the difference, I tried Mac OS Standard first. I got an error message saying the the format had failed, but now the disk was unreadable. So I tried the Mac OS Extended format. That acted like it had succeeded, but did not accept my name for the disk (supplying its own generic name).

But when I put that disk back in the G3, the computer said that the disk was unreadable. But then I tried to reformatting it again on the G3 and this time I was able to reformat it to a Mac ZIP, which was readable on both computers.

Any ideas what was going on here? There must have been an easier way.

Doug

[eyadams]

Any ideas what was going on here? There must have been an easier way.

As to what's going on, one possibility is that you have either a disk or a drive that is failing. You should try getting a new disk and see if that doesn't solve things.

As to the easier way, there is: networking. When I migrated from my "Beige" G3 to my G5 I got a network crossover cable, connected the two computers together, and turned on network sharing on the G3. It was slow, but I just let the copying run overnight and all went well.

[Big Mac]

Mac OS Extended is the updated version of the filesystem, also known as HFS+. It replaced HFS, which Apple refers to as Mac OS Standard. Why the disk failed to work on your G3 is unclear.