Weird OS 9 bootup problem

zapchudzapchud
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I'm asking for my grandfather, who is having to use 9 for his music notation software (no, switching to a X-friendly tool is not an alternative).



Does anybody have an idea, of why 9 seemingly randomly bombs itself to death stating "Bus-error" on startup? I've seen this problem before, but then it showed up every time I tried, which is not the case of my grandfather, where it sometimes boots up fine, and bombing, varying from 1 out of 4, to every second tries...



Any ideas? Reinstall the whole OS 9 thing?



oh and btw. OS X and OS 9 is installed on separate partitions... on his LCD iMac.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    actually, i have seen the problem with my g3 266 minitower... it seems to be related to installing or even downloading files off the internet...



    never been able to fix it...



    bbs
  • Reply 2 of 3
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I get a bus error messages when I start up with USB devices (and once a firewire DV camera) attached to my computers. Both on my Powerbook G3 (firewire) abd Beige G3 minitower. Just unplug and restart and it works.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    You seem to have bad luck with the worst of OS 9's habits: software conflicts. The most common causes are:
    • bad or outdated system extension

    • extensions conflict

    • outdated application using low-level system functions

    • corrupted application.

    If your Mac throws bombs at you mostly at start-up, this is likely an extension conflict. You are especially lucky if all bus errors occur at the same moment, i.e. when one and the same extension/control panel's icon is the last before the bomb.

    Otherwise you have to resort to trial and error. During OS 9 start-up hold down the space bar until Extensions Manager shows up. From the pop-up near the top of the window select "Mac OS 9.x Base". Try working with this set a little and rebooting several times until you feel it works fine. Then try the set "Mac OS 9.x All". If it still works without bombs, blame 3rd party extensions. Try adding them one by one and booting a couple of times until you add a conflicting extension. Read more about it. Examine its system requirements. Download the latest version. In most cases all extensions conflicts are well known.

    Useful tools are Extension Overload and Conflict Catcher.

    I hope this helps.
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