Out of the box, some Macintosh computers manufactured after June 2004 do not have Classic pre-installed, including iMac G5, Mac mini, and some Power Macintosh G5 computers. Classic is available on one of the Apple software discs that came with the computer, and you can install it if you need to.
To install Classic support:
Insert the disc that came with your computer that contains Classic support (“Additional Software & Apple Hardware Test” for iMac G5 and some Power Macintosh G5 computers, Software Restore discs for others–check the labels on the discs).
Double-click the “Install Extra Software” icon.
Follow the onscreen instructions.
After selecting the destination disk for installation, continue following the onscreen instructions for a basic installation or click Customize to choose the applications you want to install.
After installing classic, from the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
From the View menu, choose Classic.
If you don’t see a Mac OS 9 System Folder,the System Folder may not be “blessed”. To Bless the System Folder, open System Preferences and choose Classic from the View menu. You may see an alert box with the message:
“No startup volume: There is no volume with a system folder that supports starting Classic. Please install Mac OS 9.1 or later.”
It may not be necessary to reinstall Mac OS 9. Try these steps:
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
From the View menu, choose Startup Disk. The Startup Disk pane appears.
Note the current Startup Disk selection, which is a Mac OS X volume.
Click the Mac OS 9 System Folder you want to bless.
From the View menu, choose Show All.
For Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier, a sheet appears to confirm your choice. Click Change.
From the View menu, choose Startup Disk.
Reselect the volume you noted in Step 3.
From the View menu, choose Show All.
For Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier, a sheet appears to confirm your choice. Click Change.
Quit System Preferences.
Classic should be able to start now.
Some new macs have also been shipping without the additional DVD required to install Classic. Apple has really been trying to kill Classic I think. This is a pain since you need to have the exact disc to install on your hardware. I tried borrowing this DVD from an older G5 and from a Powerbook G4 and neither worked on a newer Powermac G5.
BUT,,, if you use the terminal and browse to where the DVD is mounted (‘/Volumes/Software\ Restore/’ I think…) and do an ls -Fa, you will see a directory named ‘.images’. Inside that directory is a bunch of disk images. Type ‘cd .images’ and then type ‘cp os9general.dmg ~’ to copy the Classic software back to your home directory.
Now, you can open this disc image and copy the contents to your system drive. This is the same result as if you went through the installer. Works great, actually easier and faster than going through the install process.
Joel, thanks a billion for this comment. I would have sent you a mail if you’d included your address.
The software restore feature on my iMac is broken after I installed 10.4. It keeps telling me to insert the restore disc even though I have already inserted it and refuses to proceed. Just the kind of lame backwards compatibility support I have come to expect from Apple.
So, there is no way to use that to install classic.
But this comment allowed me to extract the image, install it, and get classic working.
Thanks again!!
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. The format changed, I think I left that comment a few years ago actually…
Anyway, I’m very glad that comment was able to help someone. I know I was getting frustrated when I was trying to figure it out. I’m still using classic btw, haven’t gotten 100% of the apps switched over yet.