E-Maculation

I’ve set up Sheepshaver correctly a few times, but for some reason I’m having issues this time around.

I’ve been putting in different operating systems, but the only one that will run has no applications or utilities, so I can’t open any .iso files or .img files. When I installed Toast on this copy, it refuses to open any kind of disk image, always returning error -36.

Can anyone point me to a copy of OS 8-9 that has the default system applications?

sweeetjd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:56 pmI’ve been putting in different operating systems

Not sure what you are telling us. Did you try different pre-installed operating systems?
Better set up SheepShaver using our setup manual for your host OS (which one is that?) and do the guest MacOS installation yourself from a system install disk image. That way you will get a full system installation.

I did follow the instructions, but for some reason this time around I'm having issues getting a functioning OS.

The host OS is Big Sur. I've tried various install images. Only one has worked, but it did not include any kind of applications or utilities, so it couldn't open a lot of disk images for software. Additionally, Toast would not work for anything.

Is it possible to have a ROM that doesn't match the OS? I suspect that's my problem but I am unsure.

Ah okay, I think my issue is that I can't mount the installation media in Big Sur to create a .cdr. So I'm looking for a .cdr file I think.

It is not possible to mount the HFS+ disk image in Big Sur, but you can mount them in the emulator as described in the setup manual.
You can find disk images of system install disk and of several other software on the internet. The format is important (non-compressed, non-encrypted) but file extensions do not matter, you can use .cdr .dmg .toast .iso .dsk and more.

The setup manual points you to a MacOS 9.0.4 install disk image download:
"A retail international English Mac OS 9.0.4 install CD image can be downloaded from the Macintosh Garden site. On that site search for “Mac OS 9.0.4” and on the Mac OS 9.0.4 page look for the file “MacOS904CD_Intl.ZIP”."

If you doubt your rom file, the setup manual also points you to compatible rom files:
"You can find compatible ROM files when you search the web for “redundant robot sheepshaver” (without the quotes).
With the old world rom file SheepShaver can run System 7.5.3 through Mac OS 9.0.4, with the new world rom file SheepShaver can run Mac OS 8.5 through 9.0.4."

sweeetjd wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 2:46 am Ah okay, I think my issue is that I can't mount the installation media in Big Sur to create a .cdr. So I'm looking for a .cdr file I think.

You can create a CDR even though the Finder can't mount the CD -- Disk Utility will do it, as will both diskutil and dd from the command line. To test the resulting cdr file, you'll need to load it into an emulator though.

Or -- as I've recently done -- set up a VMWare image of 10.5 Server x86 that has XCode with all the PPC SDKs, and can mount HFS partitions read/write. HFS went read-only with 10.6, and was removed from the list of supported filesystems with 10.15 (my guess is that it is 32-bit code, as the 10.14 filesystem extension won't load in 10.15).

adespoton wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 5:16 pmYou can create a CDR even though the Finder can't mount the CD -- Disk Utility will do it, as will both diskutil and dd from the command line. To test the resulting cdr file, you'll need to load it into an emulator though.

We discussed this before. A HFS CD-ROM will show up in Disk Utility in Catalina (and likely in Big Sur), but there is no way to create a disk image from it.

I described a way to use the dd command to create a disk image from the HFS partition of the the CD here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10709
This will do for system install disks.

I am not sure diskutil can be used to create a disk image from a HFS CD in Catalina. How would you do that?

Thanks for all your help.

So Ronald, are you saying that I can use Mac OS 9.0.4 International download from Macintosh Garden and it will work simply by adding it to Sheepshaver, or do I have to convert it to a .CDR?

Currently on startup, it knows there's an OS there, but sends an error that says "The system software on the startup disk only functions on the original media, not if copied to another drive."

Ronald P. Regensburg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 6:30 pm

adespoton wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 5:16 pmYou can create a CDR even though the Finder can't mount the CD -- Disk Utility will do it, as will both diskutil and dd from the command line. To test the resulting cdr file, you'll need to load it into an emulator though.

We discussed this before. A HFS CD-ROM will show up in Disk Utility in Catalina (and likely in Big Sur), but there is no way to create a disk image from it.

I described a way to use the dd command to create a disk image from the HFS partition of the the CD here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10709
This will do for system install disks.

I am not sure diskutil can be used to create a disk image from a HFS CD in Catalina. How would you do that?

Hmm; there are so many things wrong with my statement I don't know where to begin. As you rightly point out and I just commented elsewhere within hours of that comment, HFS filesystem isn't included in 10.5+, which means Disk Utility can't make an image from it. diskutil has nothing to do with disk images, and can't be used to create an image without a LOT of tortuous work that probably involves piping it through dd at some point anyway. What I meant was hdiutil using hdiutil create -srcdevice </dev/disk#> -format UDTO <outputfile.cdr>. Using dd is simpler though.

sweeetjd wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:01 pm Thanks for all your help.

So Ronald, are you saying that I can use Mac OS 9.0.4 International download from Macintosh Garden and it will work simply by adding it to Sheepshaver, or do I have to convert it to a .CDR?

Currently on startup, it knows there's an OS there, but sends an error that says "The system software on the startup disk only functions on the original media, not if copied to another drive."

You need to make sure it's mounted as a CD. In current versions of SheepShaver, this is an option in the preferences you can select from the menu; in older versions it was done by getting info on the disk image and locking it prior to booting SheepShaver.

@ sweeetjd
It is all in the setup manual, also the need to select CDROM for the install CD image in the volumes list. Follow the manual by the letter. Every word in it counts. In this case it is even shown in the example picture.

Okay, that's what did it. I didn't have both CD-ROMs checked.

Thanks!

Only check the box for volumes that are supposed to behave as (read-only) CDs.

I know, I meant check the CD Rom box on the installation media and set it to Boot from: CD Rom.

I left it on to install last night, but it's been stuck at Updating Hard Disk Drivers since then. It now says 14 hours remaining, even though it started last night at 3 hours remaining.

I remember OS 9 could take a while, but I'm not sure if this is an error or not.

Looks like I can just tell it to skip that part actually, seems to be working now.

Just out of curiosity, is there a maximum amount of resources I can allocate to Sheepshaver?

For example, if I give it 16GB of RAM, will OS 9 know what to do with that much memory?

Answering all four of your last posts:

- Leave the setting "Boot From" to "Any" as shown in the setup manual. (The setting "Boot From CD-ROM" is intended for forcing booting from a physical CD-ROM when a different boot volume is available in the volumes list. Booting from a physical CD-ROM is not normally possible since MacOSX 10.8.)

- Yes, you can skip that part as described in the setup manual:
"In some configurations the system installation may stall at the very beginning while “Updating Apple hard disk drivers”. It seems to happen especially with some system install CD disk images.
Wait at least several minutes to be sure that installation is indeed not proceeding past this stage, then cancel the operation and quit the installer. You may need to force quit SheepShaver as well.
Then start again, but in the screen where the actual installation can be started (usually the first screen after the software license agreement), click the “Options…” button and uncheck the option to “Update Apple Hard Disk Drivers”. Installation should now proceed normally."

- If you set RAM Size to values like that, SheepShaver will crash and you would need to edit the prefs file manually in a text editor to recover. 512 MB of RAM is more then plenty for most uses. Better do not set it to more than 1024 MB.