Reinstalling Mac OS 9 on a PowerMac G4 MDD

The PowerMac G4 MDD was Apple’s last Mac capable of dual-booting into both Mac OS 9 and OS X. The last of the G4 towers, this model was originally introduced in 2002, briefly evolved into an OS X-only configuration with FireWire 800 in 2003, then returned to the original design for another year.

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Due to the need for some customers to run Mac OS 9 for several years after the introduction of OS X, Apple continued to sell this configuration online in parallel with the PowerMac G5 for over a year. They never pushed this option on the Apple Store but it was a consistently strong seller.

The PowerMac G4 MDD was Apple’s last Mac capable of dual-booting into both Mac OS 9 and OS X. The last of the G4 towers, this model was originally introduced in 2002, briefly evolved into an OS X-only configuration with FireWire 800 in 2003, then returned to the original design for another year. Improves Classic application compatibility in Mac OS X and delivers updated support for Macintosh systems that are based on the PowerPC G3 or G4 processor.

These machines came set from the factory to boot into Mac OS X, with OS 9 also loaded on the hard drive. No OS 9 installer was provided, rather that was available as part of the Software Restore CDs bundled with the Mac. The MDD uses a model-specific version of Mac OS 9.2.2, newer than what was included on the last retail OS 9 installer. You need the bundled discs if you want to reinstall a bootable OS 9 on this machine. (Note: only MDDs without FireWire 800 ports can boot into OS 9, models with FireWire 800 ports require OS X. The install CD I used is Apple part number 691-4078-A.)

Recently I was contacted by a client who was looking for just this. He had a dual 1.25GHz MDD with some older ProTools hardware, and preferred to run the software in OS 9 rather than OS X. The problem was his installation of OS 9 was unstable so he was looking for the original installer. Did I have a copy of this rare item?

Off-the-shelf I did not, but fortunately I knew what he meant and where to get one. My last job before running Oakbog full time was as IT Manager for a recording studio, and we ran ProTools hardware and software on these very Mac models! We had about 5 of those systems at one point, so I suspected there were plenty of CDs still buried deep in drawers. Fortunately there were, I contacted my colleagues at the studio and arranged to get a set of the install discs.

My client didn’t need Mac OS X, nor was he interested in first installing OS X 10.2.1 on his tower before restoring the OS 9 image. He just needed a bootable OS 9 System Folder. I suspected this was included on the set of four CDs somewhere, but it isn’t a Finder-visible file.

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A bit of sleuthing in Terminal helped find the mystery location. The OS 9 software is in a hidden directory called .images on the first disc. Inside there are several files including OS9General.dmg. I was able to mount (open) this disk image to the desktop via the following Terminal command:

open /Volumes/Restore CD/.images/OS9General.dmg

That takes a few minutes, then mounts a volume called OS 9 Content onto the desktop. Inside here are our old friends Applications (Mac OS 9) and System Folder, just as we know and love.

To test this worked before sending to my client, I copied the two folders to an external FireWire drive (formatted with OS 9 drivers), then connected this to my MDD running Tiger. The Startup Disk Preference Pane showed the external drive with Mac OS 9 as a valid boot choice. Restart, a few screen flickers later, and voila! Welcome to Mac OS 9.2 appears on the screen.

Mission accomplished. I now had a valid boot system for Mac OS 9 on an MDD, along with the disc image. My client was thrilled to hear the good news, and I sent him a copy on CD the next day.

The story continues: Mac OS 9 Isn’t Dead Yet…

—–
Update June 2012:
Mac OS 9 for PowerMac G4 MDD has been made available for download via the Macintosh Garden.

1. Hi, downloaded your cds on macintosh garden, to install on my Gigabit Ethernet, it now detects an os9 system but when I try to boot to it, a floppy with a question mark appears and my hdd starts spinning, any idea?

2. Hi,
   I have my old G4 MDD dual 1.25 and I have OS9General.dmg
   i try to burn it with Disk Utility and Toast, but it is not a BOOTABLE CD.
   I can only copy all folder and document on my hard disk and it work.

   BUT I AM LOOKING FOR A BOOTABLE OS9 INSTALLER CD or DVD.

   thx a lot

3. does anyone have the powermac g4 original restore disk for the 1.25ghz MDD 2003?? the disc im looking for is a DVD, and its part number is z691-4409-a – it includes 10.2.6 mac os x + mac os 9.22 as well as AHT 2.02. someone i spoke to online has the disc but he claims hes never been able to successfully copy it. is this a known issue to anyone else?
   i have the 1.25ghz mdd 2003 model and would like to get its specific original disc to restore it to factory settings!

4. Hi Adam, how did you create the partition on the external firewire hard drive and use the Mac OS 9 HDD driver to boot off it, Did you run the disktools in Classic to create the external partition, or is just “Blessing” the hard drive enough to set it as the active partition to boot from? I also used OS9helper in classic to update a OS 9.04 system that I copied off my previous Beige G3 Mac to install OS 9.2.2 within classic and make it bootable on a 2002 G4 Quicksilver that I built from pieces that I bought on Ebay.

   Thank you for the help, and the article!
   Jose F. Medeiros

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5. I have a G4 mirror. It had 1 hard drive. Another computer I had was running system 9.2.2 for my Scitex, and it died. I took the hard drive and put it into the 2nd drive spot and hooked it up in the g4 mirror. I can see everything on that drive and I can access all the files. When I go into the system preferences and go to the startup disk and select system 9 and restart, I get a ? folder. When I try to reinstall system 9.2.2 I get a message Quicktime is not compatible, please upgrade to QT 6.0.3. When I try to start Classic it says the same thing. I need to run system 9 to run my Scitex software, any ideas?

6. Adam,

   I found a G4 powermac (the one with oval bay doors – quick silver model I think?) in the dumpster. Anyhow, I put a spare blank hard drive in it and it booted right up. It gives me the “wheres the os” ?/finder icon in the middle of the gray screen. Unfortunately I don’t have a FW drive or any clones of previous ppc 9 installs from back in the day.

   * I want to install OS9 classic on it but how does one open up the cd tray to put the cd in?
   https://ninreg.netlify.app/manual-sync-music-from-mac-to-iphone-with-icloud.html. * I do have some backups of my white intel iMac and my 08 intel MBP. If I switch them to a FW drive, will they work even though they are for intel machines?

   I’m hoping I just stick my OS9.2.1 disc into the g4 PM, and it should install 123 like my old bondi blue g3. Any other tips? Thanks for your help!

7. Hi Adam

   Thanks for your site – lovely. I had a collection of old Macs starting with a couple SE’s, moving up through 10 Classics, Colour Classics, several pizza boxes (LC, LCII, 430,etc),630, 4400, 6 Grey G3’s and 4 G4 towers as well as a couple of ancient laptops, an Atari STE and 2 BBC micros. Most of these I gave away to an IT technician friend who was starting a computer museum in his garage. I still have over a dozen original install/software discs for OS 9 and OSX for PPC, iMac, iBook, etc and wondered if they were worth keeping/passing on. They range from the old orange disks up to 2005 Mac Pro disks.

8. I have the MDD that is duel 1GHz can I replace the CPU’s with The 1.25GHz Chipset and Have it work? without any additional tinkering?

9. Adam,
   I wondered if you could help me with a trouble-shooting question.
   I recently had the “power supply” replaced on a G4 Tower (running OS 9.2) and computer boots, no problem. However, ever since, the computer seemingly refuses to accept any file transfer from any external device (whether a folder of pictures, other docs).
   A typical scroll bar appears indicating how many items new to be copied, but the scroll bar sits still, instead of moving, and in effect, stays still with no other action. I checked extensions, etc. for anything appearing out of sorts – but could not find a sourse of the problem.
   (PS – I use the G4 as a back-up server (to another G4) for a medical office software; the software will open – no problem – from any recent back-up off the main server; but as I said, I cannot copy the folder permanently onto the device, as I had long done in the past). Any thoughts would be sincerely appreciated, Thank you

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10. I made a bootable USB stick with Mac OS 9.2.2, I can boot on it and install Mac OS 9.2.2 on my G3 : http://www.numopen.fr/Creer_une_cle_USB_Mac_OS_9_et_installer_Mac_OS_9

The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by Apple as the first 'personal supercomputers',^[1] reaching speeds of 4 to 20 gigaFLOPS. This was the first existing Macintosh product to be officially shortened as 'Mac', and is the last Mac able to boot into classic Mac OS.

The enclosure style introduced with the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White) was retained through its entire five year production run of the Power Mac G4, albeit with significant changes to match Apple's evolving industrial design and to accommodate increasing cooling needs. The G4 and the enclosure were retired with the introduction of the Power Mac G5.

• 3Mirrored Drive Doors/FW800

PCI Graphics/AGP Graphics/Gigabit Ethernet[edit]

The original Power Mac G4 was introduced at the Seybold conference in San Francisco on August 31, 1999.^[2] There were two variants, officially titled Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) with 400 MHz, 450 MHz and 500 MHz configurations available, and Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics), with 350 MHz and 400 MHz configurations. Colloquially, this generation of Power Mac is referred to as 'Graphite', owing to the colors of the case being similar to the iMac G3 Graphite.

Apple originally planned to ship the 500 MHz configuration in October 1999, but they were forced to postpone this because of poor yield of the CPUs. In response, Apple reduced the clock speed of the processor in each configuration by 50 MHz (making the options 350 MHz, 400 MHz and 450 MHz), which caused some controversy because they did not lower the original prices.^[3]

The early 400 MHz (later 350 MHz) PCI-based version used a motherboard identical to the one used in Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White) computers including the use of Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) processors sockets^[4] (minus the ADB port), in a 'graphite' colored case and with the new MotorolaPowerPC 7400 (G4) CPU. The higher-speed models, code name 'Sawtooth', used a greatly modified motherboard design with AGP 2x graphics (replacing the 66 MHz PCI slot).

The PCI variant was discontinued at the end of 1999.^[5]

The machines featured DVD-ROM drives as standard. The 400 MHz and 450 MHz versions had 100 MBZip drives as standard equipment, and as an option on the 350 MHz Sawtooth. This series had a 100 MHzsystem bus and four PC100SDRAM slots for up to 2 GB of RAM (1.5 GB under Mac OS 9). The AGP Power Macs were the first to include an AirPort slot and DVI video port. The computers could house a total of three hard drives, two 128 GB ATA hard drives and up to a single 20GB SCSI hard drive, with the installation of a SCSI card.

The 500 MHz version was reintroduced on February 16, 2000, accompanied by 400 MHz and 450 MHz models. DVD-RAM and Zip drives featured on these later 450 MHz and 500 MHz versions and were an option on the 400 MHz.

The Power Mac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) model was introduced at Macworld ExpoNew York on July 19, 2000; the new revision included dual-processor 450 MHz and 500 MHz versions, and a low-end single CPU 400 MHz model. It was also the first personal computer to include gigabit Ethernet as standard. Most people saw this revision as a stopgap release, because higher clocked G4s were not available; the G4’s Motorola XPC107 “Grackle” PCI/Memory controller prevented the G4 from hitting speeds higher than 500 MHz.^{[citation needed]} The dual 500 MHz models featured DVD-RAM optical drive. Zip drives were optional on all models. These models also introduced Apple's proprietary Apple Display Connector video port.

Digital Audio/Quicksilver[edit]

A new line with a revamped motherboard but the familiar 'Graphite' case debuted on January 9, 2001. Known officially as the Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio), it is in effect a Quicksilver design inside the Graphite enclosure. Motorola had added a seventh pipeline stage in the new PowerPC G4 design to achieve faster clock frequencies. New features included a fourth PCI slot, a 133 MHz system bus, an improved 4X AGP slot, and a new 'digital audio' Tripath Class T amplifier sound system. The models were offered in 466 MHz, 533 MHz, dual 533 MHz, 667 MHz and 733 MHz configurations, the latter two using a newer PowerPC 7450 processor. The number of RAM slots was reduced to three, accommodating up to 1.5 Gigabytes of PC133SDRAM.

The 733 MHz model was the first Macintosh to include a built-in DVD-R or Apple-branded SuperDrive, the rest of the line became the first Macs to ship with CD-RW drives. This was also the first series of Macs to include an Nvidia graphics card, the GeForce 2MX.

At Macworld ExpoNew York on July 18, 2001, a new line debuted featuring a cosmetically redesigned case known as Quicksilver, and various upgrades to the specifications. It was available in 733 MHz, 867 MHz and dual 800 MHz configurations. The 733 MHz model was notable for not having a level three cache. The SuperDrive was offered on the mid-range 867 MHz model, and UltraATA/100 hard drives were offered on all models. The internal speaker received an upgrade, using a Harman/Kardon speaker.

Quicksilver received criticism in MacWorld's review for removing the 'eject' button and the manual eject pinhole, as well as the pass-through monitor power plug, and for the base specification of 128 MB RAM as being insufficient for running Mac OS X.^[6]

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Updated Quicksilver machines, officially named Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002), were introduced on January 28, 2002 with 800 MHz, 933 MHz and dual 1 GHz configurations. This was the first Mac to reach 1 GHz. Again, the low end 800 MHz model did not include any level three cache. The graphics in this series were provided by an Nvidia GeForce4 MX400 card. Some of these models have ATA controllers with 48 bit LBA for hard drives larger than 128 GB.

Mirrored Drive Doors/FW800[edit]

Another generation of Apple Power Mac G4s, officially named 'Mirrored Drive Doors' (MDD), was introduced on August 13, 2002, featuring both a new Xserve-derived DDR motherboard architecture and a new case design. All models were available in dual processor configurations running at 867 MHz, 1 GHz or 1.25 GHz. As with the Xserves, the PowerPC 7455 CPU used does not have a DDR frontside bus, meaning the CPU could only use at most 50% of the new system's theoretical memory bandwidth, providing no improvement over previous models. The rest was available to the graphics card and I/O systems. A single processor 1.25 GHz model would be the last Power Mac G4 the company offered to the public after the announcement of the new Power Mac G5, introduced in June 2003.

The last real update to the Power Mac G4 line was on January 28, 2003 offering dual 1.42 GHz PowerPC 7455 processors, with features not seen in previous DDR models: built-in FireWire 800 connector, optional integrated Bluetooth, and optional integrated AirPort Extreme. These were also the first Power Macs that could not boot into Mac OS 9.

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With the launch of the Power Mac G5 on June 23, 2003, Apple re-introduced the August 2002 Power Mac G4 because of perceived demand for Mac OS 9 machines. Between that, its low price-tag, and the delayed availability of Power Mac G5s, it proved a strong seller for a relatively short time. Production stopped on June 27, 2004 and the remaining inventory was liquidated, ending the 20-year legacy of Classic Mac OS support with its discontinuation.

Noise issues[edit]

A limited range of serial numbers of this model was noted for a noisy fan, earning them the unofficial designation 'Windtunnel G4' in some communities. Noise complaints became such a problem that Apple later replaced the machine's power supply (PSU) and primary cooling fan with quieter versions, and initiated a voluntary do-it-yourself (DIY) replacement scheme for all previously sold machines. A very common issue in the MDD models was a failing PSU.

It is believed^[7] that the reason for the problem is a bug in the CPU with handling cache coherency in dual cpu setups when switching the CPU to low power states.^[8] To address this problem, Apple released a firmware update, disabling switching to low power states.

In a low power state, each CPU would have only consumed about 5 Watts^[9] (or even less when switching to even lower power states), making for 10 Watts needing to be cooled. Change mac shell manual online. But when run in full power mode (as to circumvent the cache problem), each CPU does consume about 50 Watts making for a total of 100 Watts^[10]—essentially the upper limit for which the cooling system was designed, making the fans run at full speed, even when the machine is mostly idle.

The machine can be configured to use only a single CPU at the Open Firmware prompt.^[11] There was also a developer utility^[12] to switch between single and dual CPU via a System Preferences preference pane.^[13] Using that API, a tool was developed^[14] to switch to single CPU on low load, enabling the low power mode and switching to dual CPU mode only when required. Soon after suggesting that hack to Apple, a new firmware was released,^[15] disabling the API for switching between single and dual CPU modes.^[16]

At least some MDD models also have a design flaw resulting in noise in the audio-out, picking up interference from the mouse, graphics card, hard drive and other hardware. According to Apple, this is a ground loop issue, and only occurs when used with professional balanced signal audio equipment,^[17] however some audio experts contended it is due to shielding defects on the motherboard and affects all equipment.^[18]

Timeline of Power Macintosh models

See also[edit]

Power Mac G4 Manual Download Video

Power Mac G4 Manual Download Free

Notes[edit]

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1. ^'Apple Unveils `Personal Supercomputer''. SFGate.
2. ^'Apple steps up to G4 Macs'. ZDNet.
3. ^'The 400 MHz PowerMac Reviewed'. The Mac Observer. February 21, 2000. Retrieved October 19, 2008.
4. ^'The Apple Power Macintosh G4 400MHz PCI'. Forevermac.com. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
5. ^'Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics) - Technical Specifications'.
6. ^'Hands on with the Power Mac G4/867'. MacWorld. August 25, 2001.
7. ^by me after having done a lot of research and experiments on this topic at that time
8. ^There is a Motorola errata for this
9. ^please add a reference to the Motorola spec here
10. ^this is reflected in the overall power consumption of the machine in measurements
11. ^add a link to the description how to do this: described somewhere in the apple developer docs
12. ^part of the CHUD tools, add ref to this tool here
13. ^intended to debug software problems that would occur when running multiple threads on a machine offering real concurrency)
14. ^by me
15. ^add reference to that firmware here
16. ^this might have been related to the failing power supplies. Switching the load on the power supply may have let to transients that shortened the PSU's life
17. ^[1] apple.com
18. ^[2] www.sweetwater.com

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