[G4] Wanted - MDD FW 400 system install disks

[Kathi Anderson]

> I recently acquired a G4 Mirror Door Drive 1.25 GHz DP tower (the 
> FireWire 400 model), without the original system disks. I still use OS 
> 9 (the real one, not Classic), and as I'm sure you all know, I cannot 
> get OS 9 onto this machine without the original disks. So if someone 
> has a set of these disks that they no longer need, I would be happy to 
> purchase these from you.
>
What OSX is loaded on this MDD?  I also have a pair of G4 MDD Firewire 
400 Macs with 10.3 on them.  So far as I can tell, once a MDD has 10.3 
or higher on it, it loses the ability to read the genuine Apple MDD OS 
CD's.  In other words, both of my MDD's cannot load from the original 
genuine Apple MDD CD's that came packaged with one of my MDDs.  I think 
the firmware gets modified.  When I put the original Apple MDD CD into 
the DVD drive, my MDDs don't even recognize that there is an Apple OS CD 
in the drive.  My understanding is that the CD's have a certain revision 
number on them and if the revision number is not compatible with the 
current firmware, the MDD won't even recognize that there is an Apple OS 
CD in the drive.  The local Apple store didn't know this and I spent 
hundreds of dollars replacing parts that didn't need to be changed, 
before we all realized what the problem was.

In other words if you get a set of genuine original G4 MDD CD's it won't 
load unless somebody else knows something I don't.  I have also found 
that trying to go down from 10.3 to 10.2 won't solve the problem, 
because it seems that once the firmware gets upgraded, it won't come 
back down. 

However, if you can get a genuine set of Apple G4 MDD OS DVD's , that 
might work, but I don't guarantee it.  

Cordially,

Hello, all...
As I recall from a recent thread about installing OS9, the only way to go
back to a previous OS, is to wipe the drive clean. My experience with
installing OS9 is that I was able to install it OK on my Digital Audio with
Panther, but was unable to install it on my MDD, 1.25Mhz that had Tiger.
So to sum up, you do not need the original disks to install OS9. You just
need the correct version of OS9 for the machine. 9.1 did not work for me. I
had to find a 9.2 version of OS9 on ebay.