Fixing Classic startup failures of type [4] or [22]

Jan 14, '03 09:11:32AM

Contributed by: audoctor

OK, big Classic startup problem on my 800 MHz iBook. Hit 'Start'. Get instant '...failed [22]' error message. Boots OK from OS 9 so that's not the problem. Standard select OS 9 startup disk, start classic, reselect OS X startup disk fails because Classic cannot start. Disk Utility - Repair Permissions. No help. The logs in Console talk about trying to load something past end of file - sounds like corruption to me. Sometimes it gives [4] as the error code instead.

Read the rest of the article for my solution...

Here's what worked:

  1. Went to my iMac (333 MHz). Made a .dmg copy of /System -> Library -> CoreServices -> Classic Startup.app by dragging it on to Disk Copy.

  2. Moved the .dmg file to the iBook and mounted it.

  3. Dragged "Classic Startup" out of the mounted .dmg and in to my Home directory.

  4. Restarted the iBook in OS 9.

  5. Swapped the corrupted /System -> Library -> CoreServices -> Classic Startup.app for the one imported from the iMac.

  6. Restarted in OS X.

  7. Opened Terminal.

  8. Get to the right directory:
     % cd /System/Library/CoreServices/
  9. Permissions on the new "Classic Startup.app" are drwxrwxrwx, owner is me, group is admin. Must change!

  10. Change group to wheel (this removes the need to put the pathname in quotes).
     % sudo chgrp -R wheel Classic\ Startup.app
  11. Remove write permissions for 'others':
    sudo chmod -R o-w Classic\ Startup.app
  12. Remove write permissions for 'group':
    sudo chmod -R g-w Classic\ Startup.app
  13. Change owner to root (system):
    sudo chown -R root Classic\ Startup.app
  14. Permissions should now be drwxr-xr-x, with owner as root, group as wheel.

  15. Trying to start Classic now will give you the complaint about not having superuser powers, so one more thing to do ... more directory hunting:
    cd Contents/Resources
  16. Add setuid for root to TruBlueEnvironment:
    sudo chmod u+s TruBlueEnvironment
Now Classic starts!!!!

Some notes: No, I don't know if the fix is permanent, and I do not know that nothing else remains messed up. Yes, there are probably shorter ways of doing this, but I only know so much UNIX. Also, Classic Startup on the iMac was v. 1.7.1 versus 1.7.3 originally on the iBook - don't know yet if this will be a problem. Next time I install OS X, I'll make a .dmg of Classic Startup before I do anything else! Lastly, both machines were running 10.2.3.

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