A CD-rom image should be locked. Otherwise Mac OS thinks you put the image on a read/write hard disk. So, just go to file/get info and select "locked."

I'm having the initial problem here, despite locking the image file, it still spits out the error.
System 9 boots but 8.1 wont

ok, so iv'e just set the permissions to 'read only' for all users on the 8.1 disk image, and instead of producing the error, it crashes after a split second of the startup splash screen.

I'm not entirely sure if thats an improvement

This may not be helpful but guys... spare yourself the trouble. Go out and pick up an iMac G3 for 30 bucks and enjoy those games on the original hardware. To me, it's so much more fun and it saves you messing around with those sheepshaver settings...

Have an iBook, but its running 9.1 and is incompatible with a few lower OS things. This potentially plugs the gaps

See an iBook, even more so if it's one of the earlier ones with the carry handle, and outarageously so if it's the orange iBook, could be sold on eBay for £120-160 (about $170-$240 equivalent). This would pay for a room full of old desktop Macs, ie. Quadras, G3 and a G4. All your emulation issues would besolved in a flash;

Download them, usually move them across with a USB pen if the G3 doesn't have the internet, de-compress and then as you say, Poof! You are indeed done.

And in my defence to not owning one of everything, i reside in a student house with 4 others, there isn't enough space to do something like that, hence the iBook gets shoved in a draw when its not being used.

What i don't understand is why Sheepshaver doesn't recognise any of the System 8 disk images that i have tried with it, It runs fine with the version of 9 with just the systems folder and from a System 9 install CD for iBook (well, it boots into it, wont let me install i think because it isn't an iBook.)

Haven't got a clue whats going wrong

never mind, i've run down to Sainsbury's and brought some CDs. It ran off one of those

Which Mac ROM are you using ? The one that came with OS8.6 ?

Read the SheepShaver support carefuly. Although OS8 through to OS9.0.4 is supported, it's not supported on all platforms, and not for PPC (new world) ROMs. For some platforms, you need to use an m68k ROM (old world) to run OS8.1.

Yeah, peapod, if you have an old G3 or whatever, you can run OS 9 on it, and most of the games on this site would play on it without any extra work to make it run (of course, you have to look at the game's description on here to see if it has any compatability problems with OS 9, if it's an older game).

Innes, if you want to run 8.1 in SheepShaver you will need a different ROM than the one use to Run System 8.6 and later.

Here's some notes from the setup guide. Note the "immediately quit on launch" part, and the last paragraph about old world ROMs:

source: http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_mac_os_x_setup#the_files...

"SheepShaver will not run without a compatible ROM file. If SheepShaver does not find a compatible ROM file, it will immediately quit on launch.

When you have acquired a compatible ROM file, rename it “Mac OS ROM” (without the quotation marks) if that is not yet its name. (SheepShaver will recognise a ROM file with that name in the same folder when no prefs file is yet configured.)

It may be difficult to get hold of a compatible ROM file as distributing bare ROM files violates Apple license agreements.

The ROM file from a 9.0.4 system CD will not work with any version of SheepShaver. ROM files from a 8.5 or 8.6 system CD may work with SheepShaver for Windows, but do not work with SheepShaver for Mac OS X (with a few specific exceptions that are beyond the scope of this manual).

ROM files that will work with SheepShaver for Mac OS X are either an “old world” rom extracted from an actual hardware PowerMacintosh or the “new world” rom file extracted from the “Mac OS ROM Update 1.0” with TomeViewer. The “Mac OS ROM Update 1.0” can be downloaded from Apple, but you need to have a working Mac OS system (or Classic in Mac OS X) to run TomeViewer. "

i had one of both forms of ROM, and ran them all with all the systems to see what was going on, and nothing was responding until i brought some CDs and burnt 8.5 to a disk, i cant imagine what was the problem but thankfully, its all irrelevant now

Many thanks for all the informative words

The system software on the startup disk only functions on the original media, not if copied to another drive"
what the beep does this mean exactly? I really wanna play odell down under.

Hi - i just went through this I am going to write what I learned; perhaps you have a very similar situation. I was trying to run an application in classic (os 9.2.2) when I got that message in OSX after following advice to copy an OS9 system folder...... Took me awhile to clarify terms, but here's what I learned: First you don't need to "boot" in OS 9 to be able to run OS 9 and thus run an OS 9 application - in an OSX/9.2.2. ("classic") setup, you only need to launch OS 9 after booting from OSX... bottom line you don't have to "boot" in os 9, you just have to be able to run/trigger OS 9 from whatever OS you booted in. Next, good news/bad news/good news... good news, you only have to get a complete 9.x system folder to be able to run os 9.. you don't have to do an installation, you only have to copy the OS9 system folder to your existing hard drive - in the case of osx, the system folders happen to have different names, so you've just dodged a bullet - you can have both an os9 and osx system folder in the hard drive. Bad news - an install disk's system folder is NOT COMPLETE, and is the reason you get that error... there is a difference between the level of completeness in an install disk's "system folder"and a system restore disk's system folder. NOW WHO the HECK would have ever guessed that? Bottom line - if you copy the system folder from an OS9 install disk, it won't work! IF you copy that same folder from a restore disk, it will work. I was lucky enough to find an article on that. Good news - Macintosh Garden has a complete 9.2.2. system folder that you can download.... THIS SOLVED MY IDENTICAL ERROR MESSAGE. Maybe it wil for you. Hard to believe, but the system folder contents when copied from a mounted INSTALL disk are different than the system folder contents on a restore disk.... one has everything you need to run os 9, the other is apparently missing some files that are joined in during the install process. Talk about not intuitive..........

I don´t have the OS 9 Install CD,
but I made it work just by ¨transplanting¨ the OS 9 system folder onto a HD image
and voila... it worked, and that´s the one I still use with no problems so far..
try that method.