Bill: First of all, it seems that your older Intel iMac came with Tiger 10.4.4 and therefore may not boot from Panther. I'm not sure about that. And your later Intel iMac would have come with a later OS X.
Presumably, your friend's G4 eMac does not have OS 9 installed, the OS 9 drivers are not installed, and whatever version of OS X is on it does not have Classic on board. If it is running Panther or Tiger, your friend's original installer disk(s) should have Classic available. But you may not wish to impact that machine's software configuration, unless the owner is kind of techie and offers to do so. As I mentioned in another list on this topic, you could try to "Find someone locally with an Mac running O9 or Classic." If available, that would be the easiest thing to do. But your next best alternative is indeed something like what you propose here. You may need to use a second external FW drive if you do not want to erase your backup files on the drive at hand. The likely issue is that your current backup drive may be using the GUID file system if you set it up with an Intel Mac. The G4 eMac will boot only from a drive formatted with the APM (Apple Partition Map) and not from a drive with the GUID Partition Table (GPT). With Leopard (and likely Snow Leopard), you can find a setting in Disk Utility to format in APM. On Oct 2, 1:03 pm, Bill Spencer <wspen...@jhu.edu> wrote: > After doing as much research as I have time for I'm thinking that I > can get the printer's IP address if I 1) install OS 9 and Panther on > the external FW drive I use for backups (I have disc images of 9 and > its updates, and install discs for Panther), 2) boot from there in > Panther (since I understand that I can't boot either iMac in 9 since > they're Intel machines), 3) launch Classic, and then 4) fire up the > Apple Printer Utility (or whatever it's called). That drive's about > 85% empty right now so space isn't an issue, but I'm wondering about a > couple of things: > > A) Can I partition this drive without deleting what's already there? Yes you can with Snow Leopard. As always, you should back it up first, because there is always the risk of destroying access to the onboard files. But if already formatted with GUID, that stops the show. > > B) Would I need separate partitions for OS 9 and Panther? No. > > C) Is creating OS partition(s) even necessary? I probably wouldn't > keep the OS stuff there long-term since I have no need for Classic, > let alone 9, except for this (I hope) one-time issue. No. But if that drive is GUID, it will not boot the G4. > > D) Would there be any reason to install OS 9 alone, then cart the > drive and the printer to a friend's house who has a G4 eMac which > could run 9 by itself? I'd rather not have to horse the stuff around > but if the main strategy is flawed I can certainly do so. If you format a drive in APM, there is no reason to install Panther. I propose you bring an external drive to the G4, format it in APM, install OS 9, and then do your printer business. > > E) Can I install 9 from the images or would I have to burn discs and > install from those? This is analogous to installing from a .dmg download. You should be able to mount the disk image and install the software. You should be able to do all this without impacting the friend's G4 configuration except possibly for temporary use of his Desktop. I'm not sure that installing OS 9 directly from the disk(s) to the external drive will work. You may have to first copy the image to the Desktop. > > If there's anything I'm missing or forgetting, please give me a whack > on the head. As always my thanks in advance! Barring any clarifying comments from other folks on this list, any remaining questions involving the G4 would be best taken up on the lowendmac G-List (G3-5 List). You may have lost some of this list's audience with the "printer" theme of the original topic. Good Luck, Al Poulin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
