MDD FW 400 won't boot OS 9 | System error "Unimplemented Trap" Huh?

Question

Hey guys, I need help with a weird problem. I recently bought a MDD dual 1.25 with 1.5MG RAM, CPU Type:PowerPC G4 (3.3), Boot ROM Version: 4.4.8f2. It came with a single 60 gig drive in it with OS 10.2.6, and it used to boot directly to the OS 9 system folder just fine. I took out that drive, installed it in my old Blue & White POS, gave that to my wife and now have: a seagate 80 gig drive (originally in the B&W), as well as a 160 gig & a 200 Gig.
All three drives have 9.2.2 on their own partitions, as well as on the 2 master drives with OS 10.3.8 & 10.3.6 respectively. I can’t boot directly to 9 from any of them.
The 200 gig drive was the only one of the 3 formatted directly from within the MDD, clean install, with OS9 drivers selected on install.
When I select ANY of the OS9 partitions, even the OS9 system folders on the OSX partitions for that matter, I get:
1. a grey screen (for a little too long)
2. then a happy mac box (and the cursor appears)
3. Then an empty floppy disk icon
4. Then a “?” inside the floppy disk icon
5. finally a system 9 style “bomb box” and:
“sorry, a system error occurred. Unimplemented trap. To temporarily turn off extensions, restart and hold down the shift key” .
There is a restart button. Perhaps I should mention the error dialog is apparently blocking what appears to be the “Welcome to Mac OS 9.1” screen before the icon march.
Maybe that 9.1 means nothing, but I HAVE NO 9.1 system folders on any disks. They are all 9.2.2... Well that part just bugs me.
The issue is that when I click “restart” and hold down the shift key as directed, the same actions above 1 thru 5 happen, and I’m back at the bomb.
The only way out of the cycle is to “option restart”, and all my partitions show up EXCEPT the OS 10.3.8 partition I had begun the process from. Since I have another OSX partition on one of the disks, I can select that and boot to it no problem. I am then able to select the original OSX partition on the “main” drive, and return to square one, where the cycle began. All the OS 9 system folders can be used to “boot” classic mode, and Tech Tool, Disk Warrior, all are run regularly and report minimal issues. The machine works fine, except for this one issue.
So, why is my MDD preventing me from booting directly into OS9? I read somewhere on another thread that the boot ROM is system specific, so that might answer why the drive pulled from the B&W won’t boot to 9, but the new drive was formatted by the MDD disks, and I even tried a reinstall of OS9 to that disk in an attempt to “unstick” the system. All system 9 folders reside on master drives (so slave is not the issue).
But none of the 9.2.2 folders when selected will bring me anywhere but the bomb, apparently “TRYING” to boot OS9.
WHAT am I missing here? Any ideas?
I need my Nine!!
Tom
Mirrored Drive Door G4, B&W G3 POS, broke Beige Tower Mac OS X (10.3.8) ATTO usb card, combo & superdrive, uber music gear
B&W G3, Mirrored Drive Door G4, Beige Tower   Mac OS X (10.3.8)   Atto USB card, combo drive, super drive

Answer 1

AJ,
Consider me dyslexic about the MDD. I don't know how
to reset the PMU on it. My beige G3 had a button on
the motherboard
there is a button on the motherboard of the G4. Location and color may vary. Usually black or red, mounted on a raised silver or black square...typically about 1/4" square
the B&W had a "programmers button" on the front faceplate
That's also known as an 'interrupt switch' With the appropriate debugger software, programmers could push that button and call up the debugger, which would allow them to trace their code and issue low level commands. Sometimes useful to break out of a crashed program without pulling the plug.
I know what I know from doing & reading and yes I have a
system folder or two that began in a 6320CD Performa
I think that was one of the machines that required a special file to boot - which is the file I cannot recall the name.
If that file still exists in your system folder, then it may be the culprit.
I'm certified dangerous because of knowledge gaps....
Aren't we all?
such as CDEVs are control panels?
CDEV is ControlDEVice, otherwise known as a control panel.
init's are mostly extensions?
Yes.
and what are TSR's?
Terminate and Stay Resident. Actually a DOS term for a program that runs, quits, but remains loaded in memory.
Apple calls them inits.
Many of the icons that appear during the OS9 boot process are functionally TSRs.
Init conflicts usually were the result of two or more of these programs fighting over the same block of ram.
It sound like you're asking me to search the system
folder for some invisible files correct?
No. The files should be visible. Since you can't yet boot to 9 (thus might not be able to get to use startup manager), I gave you the hard way to find and disable them.
Recall the OS9 startup mananager, which allows you to selectively enable and disable startup items? When you use startup manager, active items (with a check) will be in a folder named, for example, Control Panels. Inactive items, those without a check, will be in a folder named Control Panels (disabled)
To activate the startup manager at boot, hold down the spacebar. It should be the first thing to load. You can select OS9 only, none, or selectively tunr items on/off. Startup manager will automatically move items from the active to the disabled folder.
If you know the file names, you can manually move things from one folder to another, (which is the process I described)
All those files load in alphabetical order. Some of those items want to be loaded first, so the file was named with a leading space, period, or similar. ( Adobe type manager, for example)
There are a couple that are named such that they will load before startup manager.
Since your crash is almost immediate, I'm betting it's one of the first to load TSRs thats causing the problem.
The 80 gig resides in the B&W, so you're suggesting,
pulling it, installing it in the MDD & dragging the
system folder from there?
That is one method. Or mount the BW with Target disk mode and copy it across. Or copy the system folder to CD.
or if the machines are networked, copy across the network. Or USB memory stick, depending on the size of the folder.
The object is to get a known working drive with a known working/bootable OS into the new machine. Since I know my machine will not see either the 200 or 160 when boot to 9, and on some machines, 9 will not see anything over 128gb, I suggest getting a known good copy of 9 on a drive physically smaller than 128gb (not a sub 128 gb partition of a much larger drive)
Temporarily disconecting the larger drives has no purpose beyond helping eliminate the complexity during diagnostics and troubleshooting. You know they work as intended, and are not part of the problem.