problem with lock System folder

About SheepShaver, a PPC Mac emulator for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux that can run System 7.5.3 to MacOS 9.0.4.

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egired
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problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

I am new to SheepShaver and have a problem that I hope someone can help with. I successfully installed Sheepshaver (or SheepShaver Wrapper to be more precise) on a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac running OS X 10.9.5. During installation, I used the "New World PPC ROM", appropriately renamed ""Mac OS ROM". I also used the disk image of a generic retail OS 9.0 CD that I had purchased many years ago. After the installation, SheepShaver opens fine and I was even able to successfully run an old OS 9 graphing program (CricketGraph III). I ran into a problem, however, when trying to set up printing. My OS 9 installation did not include the Desktop Printer Utility so I tried installing the LaserWriter 8 software that I downloaded from the internet. When I try to place drop the PrintToPDF extension in the Mac OS 9 System folder I get a message that the disk is locked. I presume this is because the Mac OS image file that I am using is locked, as the SheepShaver instructions stated it must be for proper installation. I cannot figure out how to get around this problem. I tried turning off the lock on the Mac OS 9 image file but SheepShaver would not start when I did that. Any help someone can provide to solve this problem would be appreciated! Thanks!!!
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adespoton
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

Please re-read the setup instructions. The CD image you install from must be locked. Once you've installed onto a writeable disk image, you remove the CD image from your image list, and boot on to the freshly installed image. The CD doesn't have desktop printing, but the installer should be able to install it on your new image -- which should be unlocked.

So you'll need to figure out what you're actually booting from at this point, and ensure your non-cd boot image isn't locked (and you wouldn't be able to install anything on it if it WAS locked, because it would be locked).

Make sense?
egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

Many thanks for your reply. I am sorry to say that I am not following what you wrote. I did read the SheepShaver instructions carefully but it seems I missed something critical. As background, here is exactly what I did to install SheepShaver:

(1) After getting a ROM file as previously noted, I placed it on the SheepShaver Wrapper app. That worked fine.

(2) I took the (locked) OS 9 CD image file I created from a OS 9 CD and dropped it on the SheepShaver Wrapper app. That worked fine.

(3) When I tried to start SheepShaver the first time I got the window with the grey floppy icon with the blinking "?". At this point, the SheepShaver instructions were a bit murky to me, but I continued as follows.

(4) I opened Preferences from the SheepShaver menu, selected "Setup", clicked on the Add button, and added the OS 9 CD image file. I am guessing that this is a mistake but please read on.

After force quitting SheepShaver and restarting the program, it opened fine. However, as I noted earlier, the OS System folder is locked, presumably because the CD image file is locked.


Following your reply I tried the following, without success:

(i) I deleted the presumably offending CD image file from "Volumes" in the SheepShaver preferences.

(ii) I added the ROM file as described in the SheepShaver instructions.

(iii) I created the disk image file "MacOS9" as described in the instructions.

I then force quit SheepShaver and restarted the program. The program again stopped at the window with the grey floppy icon with the blinking "?". So, this is where I am still stuck.

What I definitely do not understand from your reply is your statement "Once you've installed onto a writeable disk image, you remove the CD image from your image list, and boot on to the freshly installed image." The terms in this statement are a bit too technical for me. Can you please tell me in practical terms, what I need to do to implement the actions in this statement? As you can tell, I am a real novice so I hope you will be patient with me. I really would like to get SheepShaver to work. Thanks in advance for your help!
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adespoton
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

When installing an operating system on a computer, you have the computer, its blank hard drive, and an install CD. You turn on the computer, insert the CD, and it boots up. Then you use the install system to format the internal hard drive and install the OS. When installation is complete, the computer reboots and the CD is ejected. The computer then proceeds to boot from the internal hard disk.

With SheepShaver, you need to lock the CD image for the emulator to treat it as a CD image. In general, you follow the same steps, except that you need to manually install the ROM file (by hand, or by dropping it on the wrapper), you need to create and attach your own blank hard drive image, and you need to use the CD image instead of a physical CD.

The first time around, you gathered the emulator, the ROM and the install CD, and eventually successfully booted to the installer.

You then removed the install image and replaced it with a blank hard disk image, which didn't boot, as there's nothing on it.

Now you need to boot the install CD as you did at first, then format the blank HD image, then install the OS to it, eject the CD image, and restart the emulator -- as outlined in the setup instructions.

[edit] I'm presuming that you actually DO have an OS 9 install CD image, and not something like the stripped-down RedundantRobot OS 9 boot image. If you have the second, that won't let you install anything as it's an already-installed drive image that's been stripped down. It won't run many software titles as it is an incomplete installation. It does, however, need to be unlocked, as it's not an install CD, it's a virtual hard drive with a "slim" copy of OS 9 pre-installed on it.
egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

Thanks again for your help! I think I understand what you are saying in your last post. Here is where I am currently.

(1) I decided to get a fresh start so I downloaded the latest version of SheepShaver rather than continue to work with SheepShaver Wrapper.

(2) I added a Mac OS ROM file to the SheepShaver folder and ran through all of the configuration settings as described in the instructions (2 February 2014 update with use for 25-10-2009 and later builds).

(3) After configuring SheepShaver, I quit the application. I then installed a GENERIC, RETAIL OS 9 CD (ver. 9.0.4) into my iMac. I then launched SheepShaver, which started without any problems. I was prompted to initialize a new volume, which I did. This went without incident.

(4) My problems arose when I tried to install OS 9 from the installation CD. When I click on the "Mac OS Install" icon on the CD, a window appears with the following message:

"You can't open the application "%@" because it may be damaged or incomplete."

After seeing this, I was concerned that my old OS 9 CD might be bad so I got another one from a colleague (also ver. 9.0). I experienced the same problem with his CD, so I think it's unlikely that we have two defective CDs.

So, at this point I am stuck. Any advice would appreciated!

Assuming I can past this point, I hope you can help with a related question. If I understand that SheepShaver directions correctly, it sounds like I am supposed to install OS 9 on the newly created volume I created just before the "Proceed with the system installation." instruction. For clarification, in the instructions, this volume is named "MacOS9HD". Do I have that right?

Thanks again for any additional advice you can provide!!!
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

That all sounds right to me; you appear to have successfully got to the "Proceed with the system installation." step.

Since you've already formatted the other drive, try rebooting and see if it gets further. If you're still having problems running the meta-installer off the CD, try scrolling down in the main window, opening the folder, and running the installers inside manually instead of using the meta-installer.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

egired wrote:(3) After configuring SheepShaver, I quit the application. I then installed a GENERIC, RETAIL OS 9 CD (ver. 9.0.4) into my iMac. I then launched SheepShaver, which started without any problems. I was prompted to initialize a new volume, which I did. This went without incident.

(4) My problems arose when I tried to install OS 9 from the installation CD. When I click on the "Mac OS Install" icon on the CD, a window appears with the following message:
I wonder how you "installed" the OS 9 CD in your Mac.
In your first post you wrote that you run OS X 10.9.5 on your Mac. Yet, OSX 10.8 and later prevents mounting of physical CD-ROMs in SheepShaver. So how could the installation CD appear inside SheepShaver? And from which volume did you start up SheepShaver?
Last edited by Ronald P. Regensburg on Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

Thanks again for the reply. I got everything to finally work with a suggestion from our departmental computer administrator. He recommended that I try the "Mac OS 9 Boot Image" from the Redundant Robot website. I downloaded this, added to the Volumes, deleted the old MacOS 9 image I originally installed, rebooted SheepShaver, and I was all set!! This gave me a System folder that was no longer locked and I was able to successfully install LaserWriter 8 software that allowed me to create eps print files for the OS9 program that I wanted to use (CricketGraph III). So, it looks like I am set for the moment.

I want to thank you again for your advice and patience in helping me get SheepShaver installed and working!! I now hope to help a colleague who I collaborate with to get SheepShaver (and CricketGraph) working on his iMac running a modern OS.
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adespoton
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

Just a reminder that since you used the RedundantRobot pre-installed image, it isn't a complete install (like I mentioned previously). This means that you will likely find that some applications will not run, but will instead throw errors.

Glad you got it working for your specific current needs though :)
egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

Thanks for the reply. I also noticed after I used the Redundant Robot image that the System folder is limited to 120 Mb. After installing printer files I only have 4 Mb of free space in the System folder and I have not figured out a way to increase the System folder size. The Rendundant Robot site states the file is 120 Mb, so perhaps I am stuck with that. Although this is not a problem at the moment, it may be if I decided to try add anything else to the System folder in future. At present, I only wanted to get SheepShaver running to support the old graphing program CricketGraph III, which a colleague and I have found to still be the most easy-to-use graphing program that we've tried, and we've tried plenty of them. Fortunately, CricketGraph runs well with SheepShaver as I presently have it installed and we can save CricketGraph graphs as eps files that I can pass through the shared folder to import into Word, which works great.

I still need to install SheepShaver on an Intel iMac of my colleague, so I may try your suggestion of running the installers from my OS 9 CD manually when I get to that installation.

Thanks again for your advice! I really appreciate it! I may be back for more advice in future ...
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

It's not your System Folder that's limited to 120MB... the Redundant Robot drive image is only 120MB. To use a larger disk, you can just create and format a new, larger image and copy the System Folder from the Redundant Robot image over to it, and it will be a boot disk. But I'd recommend installing a full OS install instead.
egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

I'm back! I just wanted to let you know that I FINALLY figured out how to get the full OS 9 installed from the OS 9 CD image. You are certainly going to laugh when I tell you why I was not successful before, but I also wanted to let you know that "Space Cadets" like me could use a little more information in the SheepShaver instructions at the step that says "Proceed with the system installation".

So, here was my problem with installing OS 9 from the CD disk image. I did not realize that, after I created the MacOS9 virtual disk, I needed to then click on the "Mac OS Install" icon to start the installation. Ok, I know you are either laughing hysterically or just shaking your head at this point thinking 'this guy is an idiot'. Well, all I can say is that it was not obvious to me that the installation icon was going to work in this particular setting.

FYI, it turns out that for the OS 9 application I wanted to use – CricketGraph III – having a full system installation ended up being important. Although CricketGraph III ran with the Redundant Robot OS 9 image file, use of italic fonts caused the program to crash when trying to save graphs as eps files. This was a showstopper, as I often use italics fonts in graphs. Fortunately, this problem disappeared when the full OS 9 was installed. So, I want to thank you for pointing out that the Redundant Robot OS 9 image was not a complete installation. I would not have known this otherwise and would have likely given up on SheepShaver.

I do not know who is responsible for maintaining the instructions for SheepShaver, but I wanted to suggest two possible additions:

(1) That the step "Proceed with the system installation" be made a little more specific for first-time SheepShaver users, especially those using OS 9 image files.

(2) As far as I can tell, the instructions do not explicitly state where the locked OS 9 CD image file should be placed. I initially put it on the desktop and found that did not work. When I placed the file inside the SheepShaver folder, it worked fine. I suspect that expert users consider this obvious, but it won't necessarily be true for those new to SheepShaver.

Finally, thanks again for all of your help!!!! I hope that I can somehow return the favor to some future, new SheepShaver user. FYI, I wrote up a set of abbreviated SheepShaver installation instructions for myself so that I can duplicate what I did in future. I would be happy to share these with any new user who would like them. While the instructions are not as detailed as the ones online, they cover in more detail the parts that I found less clear. Thus, they may be of some use to other 'space cadets'!
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

I am glad that you finally managed to install MacOS.

I am the one who wrote the setup guide, first version some 10 years ago, and gradually expanded it over the years. I must confess that I find it hard to imagine how "Proceed with the system installation" could mean anything else than starting the installer application. I will make that more explicit.

The location of the locked MacOS install CD image is irrelevant. It can be placed anywhere you like. But, of course, the path to the image file needs to be in the volumes list. In the setup guide:
"If an install CD disk image file is used instead of a real install CD: Use the “Add…” button to find and “Open” the CD disk image file. That image file will appear in the Volumes list below the volume you created."
egired
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by egired »

Thanks and many thanks for creating the SheepShaver guide. I may be the only one in the known universe who did not completely understand what "Proceed with the system installation" meant, but perhaps not. Regarding the location of the CD image file, it did not seem to work for me when I had it on the desktop. I need to install SheepShaver on another computer so I will check that again.

Again, a huge thanks to you and all others who support SheepShaver. You can not know how happy I am to have CricketGraph III running on a modern Mac. A colleague and I have been keeping four old iMac G5s running for years just so that we can continue to use CricketGraph. We are delighted at the prospect that we can eventually 'mothball' these old computers and use CricketGraph on our modern iMac and Apple laptop computers.
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Re: problem with lock System folder

Post by adespoton »

Under OS X 10.11 and later, it is possible that file permissions/security settings may prevent SheepShaver from being able to read the disk images from some locations. The Unarchiver was modified to get around this with popping up a user-interactive alert when the OS hits this limitation. Most software won't even encounter this problem, and most host OS installations won't be configured to reveal this issue -- but it appears that since egired is set up in a campus configuration, this issue has reared its ugly head.

Not sure that we should add this issue to the instructions though, as in most cases it will just confuse people instead of helping them solve any problem.
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