[Zubir]

First of all, forgive my ignorance in the following message, I haven't used a Mac in almost 10 years. Ok, I just bought a used Powermac G4 digital audio. All I got was the tower itself, with Jaguar only installed, no system discs. I'm using a Logitech Elite keyboard, with a Logitech optical wheel mouse.

The first problem is that none of the command-option commands work, like command-option-o-f, or command-option-p-r, or holding the "c" key to boot from optical, etc. Is this because I'm not using a real Apple keyboard?

The second problem is that I want to update the firmware to the latest version, but I need OS 9.1 or later to do so. As mentioned before, this tower has only Jaguar installed. I have a 9.1 disc, but I can't boot from it because of the keyboard problem. Also, I have no idea of the correct procedure to install OS 9 without screwing up my OS X install.

Any help would be kindly appreciated.

[tonywong]

If Jaguar is working, click the system preferences in the dock or apple menu and choose startup disk. Insert the 9.1 disk and choose that to start up from. Then you'll be able to boot into 9 to do your firmware update.

[cal6n]

According to logitech, your keyboard and mouse are supported under v 1.2.1 of their OS X Logitech Control Center. Download it from their site and it should solve your keys issue.

As for your firmware problem, You may already have an OS 9 installation to support classic. Have a look at your start up preference as suggested by the previous poster. If you have the option. start up in OS 9. If not, insert your OS 9.1 disk and install on the same partition as jaguar. Restart in 9.1 and update your firmware & then your OS (from Apple's site) to 9.2.1 and then to 9.2.2. This will allow you to run in classic mode.

Note that it's not looking good for OS 9 support for your keyboard. A quick look at their site only turned up an OS X version.

Hope this helps

[Zubir]

I installed the latest software from Logitech's site right off the bat. That's why I'm confused that the keys don't seem to be working.

In the start up disk preference, I see only a OS 10 folder, and a network icon. When i try to install OS 9, I get a window saying that there is no folder on the volume to support classic. What am I doing wrong?

[cal6n]

At the risk of stating the obvious, you are waiting till just after the chime before key-presses, aren't you?

I've always used Apple keyboards, so I've not seen this before. Have you tried swapping the USB port for the keyboard?

Anyway, try putting the OS 9 disk in your machine, Then opening the startup preference and selecting the startup pane with the CD symbol. It might take a while to appear. Then restart from within the startup disk preference panel.

If all else fails, could you borrow a keyboard from somewhere?

[Zubir]

I'm holding down the keys from the time the computer reboots, until I see the OS X start screen. Nothing happens. The only person I knew who had an Apple keyboard (iMac) has moved, so I'm SOL there.

There is no CD symbol in the start up disk pane. This tower has a DVD-ROM drive, which should make no difference, and it works, as I'm able to browse CD's with it.

[reader50]

Make a root-level folder called "Mac OS 9" on the hard drive, and copy the CD contents into this folder. See if you can select this folder to boot from. If it hangs on boot, use Tome Viewer to extract the System file from the installation tomes and replace the System file copied from the CD.

This will leave you with a sparse copy of OS 9, with limited support files and drivers. Run the installers and put down a full copy or use Tome Viewer to extract all the missing files. If you go the Tome Viewer route, you will need to know where all the extracted files go, so the Installer method is recommended.

edit ... hmm, you would need to have Classic running in order to even launch Tome Viewer. oops

[Briareus]

This sounds familiar (having OS X installed with no Classic and can't boot from an OS 9 CD). Is there a chance that when Jag was installed, the drive was initialized with Disk Utility and the option to "install OS 9 drivers" was NOT checked?

I unfortunately did this when I doing a wipe/reinstall before passing my Sawtooth on to another person and lost the ability to boot OS 9 from any source. The only OS 9 CD I had was 9.0, and it wasn't recognized when hold "C" or "option" at startup.

I tracked down an OS 9.2 CD which managed to be bootable.

Just a shot in the dark - hope it helps.

[Zubir]

I just popped in another harddrive I had laying around, copied the 9.1 disc to it, and now the option to start up with OS 9 is in the pane, but the computer won't start with 9, it still goes staight to OS X. I formatted the new drive with the standard Mac file system, and enabled the OS 9 start up files, but still no go.

Yes, the harddrive that came with the Mac was obviously formatted with Jaguar with the OS 9 start up options disabled.

[Zubir]

Finally succeeded. What I ended up having to do was to get a version of 9.2.2, because its seems that the 9.1 disc I have is not bootable on this machine because of a boot block. I tried to copying the entire 9.2.2 CD to a second harddrive I installed, but I couldn't boot from it after selecting it from the start up options.

I pulled the IDE connector from the drive that 10 was installed on, and then was able to boot the compuer from the 9.2.2 disc in install mode, and install 9.2.2 on the second harddrive. I then shutdown, reconnected the IDE connector to the OS 10 drive, rebooted, then picked boot from 9.2.2 in the start up options. The computer then booted straight to 10, not matter what I tried. So, I had to copy the firmware to the second drive, pull the IDE connector again, and reboot from the second drive.

All of this trouble to update firmware... not to use OS 9 for anything else. Big fun.