Classic freezes or stalls when started in OS X 10.4.6

Question

Hello,
The classic environment freezes or stalls when it is started from OS X 10.4.6. In the expanded classic window pane, the smiling mac on the grey background appears, then the "welcome to Mac OS" appears (Mac OS 9.1). The blue progress bar at the top shows only a small sliver of blue on the left, and the progress bar does not advance at all. After many minutes, 10 or 15 so the classic window closes, perhaps a time-out limit, and has not started.
Mac OS X 10.4.6 was just recently installed on our Mac G4 from CD (4 CDs) rather than the OS X DVD, since we only have an internal CD drive. Our Mac is a 733 MHz PowerPC G4 (2.0) with 1 CPU; 512 MB SDRAM, 1 MB L3 cache, and 32 GB of available disk space. Let me know if other details would help with a diagnosis.
I have tried the suggestions given in the other forum articles that talk about the classic envirionment freezing or stalling such as:
blessed the Mac OS 9.1 system folder,
rebuilt the desk top,
removed the OS 9.1 servers folder,
turned off extensions in the classic options,
disconnected all external devices,
searched for the DivX folder, but didn't find it.
Are there other things I should try to permit classic to start from OS X?
Other forum articles seem to indicate that starting up classic in OS X allows older software to run in OS X. Is that true, or am I missing something?
By changing the start up disk to OS 9.1 the Mac will boot up directly to OS 9.1 (the previous OS used for many years) without any problem. Our current work around for older applications is to change the start up disk and boot up directly to OS 9.1.
Your advice and help is appreciated. My goal is to be able to start the classic Mac OS from OS X to run old applications like MS Office. Thanks for your help.
Regards,
Greg
Mac G4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   classic freezes during start up

Answer 1

Hi Robbie,
Thanks for your reply to my question. I'll try to describe how I start classic in more detail. I have tried starting classic from the top menu bar icon (and from the classic system preferences form), and by trying to directly start an OS 9 application (like Word or Excel).
When I launch classic from the top menu bar icon a new window opens with the "smiling mac" on the grey background followed by the "welcome to Mac OS". At that point nothing else happens for a long time (no progress bar movement, no other forms or windows opening), in excess of 10 to 15 minutes. If the classic form closes after the long wait, the classic system preferences form still has a "start" button, so I presume that classic has not started. OS 9 applications do not start at that point. Should the progress bar move while classic is loading? I'm pretty sure that the blue progress bar in the classic window never moves, even when the classic window closes.
When directly opening an OS 9 application like Word or Excel the classic window opens, but again no change to the progress bar and the classic window stays open for a long time. The OS 9 application does not start.
Does this description help? Let me know if I can provide more details of what happens. I would be glad to try any tests you suggest, and report on the outcome, to help diagnose this problem. I can also try upgrading to OS 9.2.2; can you point me to an easy way for that upgrade? I'll check around the apple web site too.
Since the Mac can be booted up directly to OS 9.1 or OS X (by selecting the startup disk) it seems like there may be something that is interfering with classic being launched from OS X. Perhaps there are other files or preferences that can be disabled or removed in hopes of removing the interference and gettting classic to launch?
Thanks again for your help with this classic start up problem.
Regards,
Greg