[G4] Wanted - MDD FW 400 system install disks

[Bruce Ryan Nakamura]

Kathi Anderson wrote:
>   
>> 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.
>
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>
>   
Hello Kathy,

I tried wiping the drive clean on my MDD, but it still wouldn't see that 
a Mac OS X MDD CD was in the drive.  If I recall correctly when I put a 
non OS X CD in the drive, the CD image would mount on the desktop.  The 
same MDD did see my Mac OS X MDD DVD in the drive and that is how I 
loaded native OS 9 and X on my MDD.  What version of 9.2 did you find on 
Ebay?

Cordially,

Bruce Ryan Nakamura