How to install Classic on 800MHz SD eMac w/10.4 w/o wiping entire drive??

Question

I've been trying to help out a friend who bought an 800MHz eMac (SuperDrive) used on Craigslist. Machine is in great condition and came with Tiger installed and working fine. She has since installed many of her own OS X apps, but finds she needs to run a few legacy apps and needs Classic installed.
She has a 4-CD set of eMac Software Restore discs, which contain OS 10.1.4 plus OS 9.2.2. These are not standalone installers, however. After mounting Disc 1, she is able to reboot from that CD (into an OS 9 interface), but is only presented with a single option, and that is to erase the hard disk and do a complete restore of the original OSes and apps that shipped with the computer. Since she has spent weeks installing apps and configuring the computer just as she wants it, she does not want to have to wipe the entire drive just to be able to add Classic at this point.
I can think of two alternatives, neither of which will work for her because she does not have access to an external firewire drive, either with or without a bootable system on it. My two methods would be to either:
A. Boot from an external FW drive in target disk mode and then use a standalone OS 9 installer (which she does have) to get Classic on the eMac;
B. Clone the entire hard drive to an external drive and then run the 4 eMac Software Restore discs, update to the latest version of Tiger, and then add back all her additional installed apps and utilities, etc.
1) Am I correct in assuming that method A would, in fact, work?
More importantly, though, can anyone suggest a simpler way to install OS 9 on this machine which would not involve using an external drive? It's so frustrating that the Software Restore disc is bootable (whereas the standalone OS 9 installer disc is not!)...yet there is no apparent way to access just the OS 9 installer on these Restore discs and to run just that installer and not have to reformat the entire drive.
2) Any bright ideas on a relatively simple workaround would be greatly appreciated!
Additionally, it is unknown whether or not OS 9 drivers have been installed on this eMac. I assume, though, that if they had not been installed, then an OS 9 installation would balk and not go through. It would be worth taking that chance, though, as the worst that could happen is that OS 9 would not install. Then there would be no other option but to do a full erase and install from the Restore Discs.
3) Is there any way of ascertaining in advance whether or not OS 9 drivers have been installed?
Thanks in advance for any help!
PowerMac G4/867   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Your initial post notes that OS X 10.4 is installed but 10.1.4 is on the actual restore discs that you have. My recollection is that Apple switched from 10.1.4 to 10.2 late in the production run of the 700 MHz model eMac (specificaly, they upgraded two weeks after I bought my 700 MHz eMac), so a 800 MHz model should have shipped with OS X 10.2, not 10.1.4. There are significant differences in the Restore disc sets between the different OS X versions. In any case it's clear that the discs you have do not include a retail Tiger install disc. You'll eventually want to pick up the retail black-lable Tiger 10.4 Install DVD in case it's ever necessary to reinstall the OS (if the eMac is one that doesn't have a DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive, the Tiger DVD can still be exchanged for a set of CDs for a nominal fee).
From your later posts, it appears that you do have a separate OS 9 install CD but that the emac won't boot from that OS 9 disc. It rather sounds as if the disc set you have is actually from an earlier 700 MHz eMac model. Open System Profiler and check the video hardware; if it shows ATI graphics rather than nVidia graphics, you definitely have the wrong set of discs. While there's no online link for this, you can call the Apple Store and ask about purchasing a replacement set of discs for the Mac model you actually have (have the info from eMac: How to locate the serial number and identify your model handy if you call).
The OS 9 installation method you need depends on the set of restore disks and the original OS X version that was provided with those discs. Since you have 10.4 installed on a 800 MHz eMac, you'd nominally start with Mac OS X 10.4: Restoring applications from a Mac OS X 10.2 Software Restore disc rather than the older Using Restore Discs with Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.3.3. Unfortunately, reinstalling Classic following that guide does invovlve erasing the HD, which you want to avoid.
Given the discs you do have is for 10.1.4, you can check the later part of Using Apple Software Restore to install or reinstall parts without erasing (Mac OS X 10.1.5 or earlier) for the steps on how to install parts without erasing. However, if I'm picturing the correct set of Restore discs that you have in hand (there have been enogh different sets of resstore and install discs to make that a royally confusing morass), OS 9 is not on the Restore disc set in versions prior to OS X 10.2; rather, there should be a separate OS 9 Install CD in the set of discs that came with OS X 10.1.4 Macs.
Under the circumstances, unless you acquire the correct Restore discs for that model eMac, your best chance of getting Classic installed would on first thought be to take up Chopsuey's suggestion about dragging the OS 9 System Folder from the OS 9 Install CD onto the eMac's HD, then try to use that to get a hobbled form of Classic open well enough to use Tome Viewer to extract the full OS 9 System onto the HD. Although the OS 9 CD you have from a OS X 10.1.4 disc set would be for an nVidia graphics eMac and your appears to be an ATI model, the actual graphics hardware is driven by OS X, so having the wrong graphics drivers in OS 9 may or may not actually limit Classsic to running in a 640x480 pixel window.
I'm pretty sure you'd find it easier to call the Apple Store for the correct set of Restore discs for that model.
Installing the OS 9 drivers on the hard drive is required to boot the nVidia graphic model eMacs into OS 9 from the HD but is not required to use the OS 9 System Folder to run Classic. Later ATI graphics eMacs won't boot into OS 9 regardless of whether or not the drivers are installed on the hard drive. Either way, if you only want to run Classic, you don't need to reformat the drive to install the OS 9 drivers (nor search for the Terminal hack to put OS 9 drivers onto an already-formatted HD).