[uthscsa19]

I have an old Powerbook that normally loads OSX. I needed to get a program running that requires OS9 on and classic was not working. When i tried booting from OS9 it freezes at the grey screen with the little picture of the mac on the middle of the screen. I have 2 questions. Why is it not booting on 9. And how do i get it to start booting on OSX again if I cant get past this screen.

[stuartpurple]

First off, I have no idea why it can't boot into OS9. The only reason I can think of is that is a new laptop and therefore can't anyway. But you say that it's old. Hmmm.
Secondly, to boot into X, simply hold down the 'x' key at startup.

[uthscsa19]

When i hold down X on startup it still goes to the litte smiling mac, im guessing its tring to go to OS9

[stuartpurple]

What is the specification of your PB?
Have you got the two OSs on the same partition?

[uthscsa19]

Its a Pismo. I have both OS's loading from the same drive/partition. I changed the bootup drive on OSX to boot to OS9 to see if i could get this program to work. Now i just want to get OSX to boot.

[stuartpurple]

OS9 Apple menu > Control Panels > Startup Disk.
Select the boot volume for OSX there. That should do it.

[uthscsa19]

OS9 wont boot corretly, it sticks at the smiling mac symbol. So i cant do what you just told me.

[d00d]

Do you have an OS 9 CD around that you can boot from and use Startup Disk on?

[uthscsa19]

Ok i got it booting with the system restore disk it came with, but its booting to OS9. How do i get it to boot to OSX next time when i restart. I go under CONTROL PANEL and STARTUP DISK, but there is only MAC HD and NETWORK DISK and the CD RESTORE DISK, no mention of OSX. When i tried the MAC HD it loaded again on OS9, and never got passed the smiling apple. I changed the Start Up on OSX to startup on OS9, but i want to switch it back. How do i do this.

[d00d]

You may need a fairly recent version of the Startup Disk control panel to recognize OS X. Hopefully the OS 9 on your hard disk does. Once started up off the CD, try opening the Startup Disk control panel on your hard disk. That sounds a little strange, but it should be an up to date version and it should recognize the OS X system on your hard drive. It will work even though it's not part of the current start up folder.

[uthscsa19]

All i see under it is Network Drive, Mac HD and the startup CD.

[d00d]

There should be a little arrow next to the hard drive. The OS 9 system and OS X system should appear when you click this drop down arrow.

[denisincalif]

The first post in this thread says "Classic wasn't working". Did it ever work on this computer? I am wondering what version of OS 9 is on that machine. Doesn't Classic require at least 9.1? If 9.0 is there, wouldn't that explain Classic not working AND the Startup Disk control panel on the Restore CD not recognizing OS X anywhere?
It sounds to me like uthscsa19 needs to find install disks for OS 9.2 and reinstall OS 9. Regardless of what OS 9 version used to be on that machine, it seems pretty clear that the old OS 9 system folder has been corrupted somehow.

[uthscsa19]

By reinstalling 9.2, will this destroy any files on this computer. Or will i just copy over the existing OS.