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Abit667 · 12:00 AM

I have a MDD dual 867. Back in 2004 I got a sonnet ata133 card for it so I could run some additional hard drives, and it's worked fine for that so far.

However, now I want to put some 250 gig and 400 gig hds in it. The controller says it supports >120 gig drives, however, after installing them and investigating the matter it turns out that the firmware on the card is too old and needs to be updated to get >120 gig drive support.

The firmware update utility must be run in real OS9, not classic or anything. All I was able to get was an OS 9.1 install cd, and it shows up fine in 10.4.9, but won't boot to install.

When I go to reboot and hold down C it just boots straight back into osx. If I do startup disk chooser and select the OS 9 cd (which shows up in the menu) it restarts, sits at the grey apple screen for like 40 seconds, then changes to what looks like the background of the os 9 installer and then immediately powers off. If i turn it back on it just does this over and over again.

I couldn't find much searching, but it appears that maybe I need an OS 9.2.2 cd? Is there any such thing as an os 9 bootcd or something I can download just to run this update? I emailed sonnet and they only have the update available for OS9 and said the only way to update the card would be to get the computer running OS 9. I also have no access to any older macs running OS 9 to perform the update on.

edit: Now it won't even boot OS X anymore off the hd. The same thing happens as with the os 9 disc, blue screen comes up with a cursor for like 10 seconds, can move the mouse around, but then the machine just powers off. It just does the same thing when turned back on. It won't boot the 10.2,10.3, or 10.4 cds/dvds either.

BigBadBiologist · Mar 31, 2007, 12:35 AM

do you have your CD/DVD drive hooked up to the motherboard or the ata133 card?

Abit667 · Mar 31, 2007, 01:08 AM

Originally Posted by BigBadBiologist

do you have your CD/DVD drive hooked up to the motherboard or the ata133 card?

cd drive is hooked up to the motherboard.

I have a 10.4 install on a hd thats connected to the controller card that I've been using for a while and it won't boot anymore, and I have a 10.3 install on a hd connected to the motherboard and it does the same thing when trying to boot it as well.

Sherman Homan · Mar 31, 2007, 09:21 AM

The MDD shipped with System 9.2.2 and if I remember correctly, that is the minimum operating system. If it didn't boot with 9.1 and you weren't able to install anything then I have no idea why your OS X drive won't work now... if you don't have access to any older Mac to set up a hard drive with 9.1 and update to 9.2.2 then you have to find a 9.2.2 install CD.

chefpastry · Mar 31, 2007, 09:58 AM

You have to dig up the original OS recovery discs that came with your MDD. Only the included version of OS 9 worked properly with the MDDs. OS 9 was hidden in the recovery discs and was not a seperate installer disc.

mfbernstein · Mar 31, 2007, 01:48 PM

Yeah, according to Apple's docs you've got the problem I had with the iBook G3 800: even the stock OS 9.2.2 CD doesn't work on it, because the machine came out somewhat after it. I really wish Apple would release OS 9 as abandonware. They're not making money on it, and those of us with older machines could really use the help.

Abit667 · Mar 31, 2007, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by chefpastry

You have to dig up the original OS recovery discs that came with your MDD. Only the included version of OS 9 worked properly with the MDDs. OS 9 was hidden in the recovery discs and was not a seperate installer disc.

This helped. I found the original HD I had in the machine which had a classic install on it and I was able to boot off the classic system folder and it worked. I got the card flashed and now my drives show up as the right size.

10.4 is booting again, but it will only do it if I hold down option at start up and select the right hd, otherwise it just sits there for a while and then starts to load but shuts down. Oh well, it never gets restarted anyway.

Thanks for the help. I really wish apple would release os 9 as a free download, it's not like they support it or sell it anymore. It's hard enough to find a copy of it anywhere, and it's not like apple makes any money off that anyway.

chefpastry · Mar 31, 2007, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by Abit667

10.4 is booting again, but it will only do it if I hold down option at start up and select the right hd, otherwise it just sits there for a while and then starts to load but shuts down. Oh well, it never gets restarted anyway.

Go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk and select your 10.4 partition again. It should start from the correct drive after that.