Partitioning from Disk Utility without the Install Disks

[MasterDogma]

Simply, I want to play some old 90s games on my G4 iMac with Mac OS X 10.5. They worked on my old G3 through Classic, but now since I don't have Classic, I need to find new way to do it.

Upon much searching and asking questions, I've concluded the following:

1.) Leopard doesn't support Classic.

2.) My G4 doesn't support Mac OS 9.

3.) I can partition my harddrive from Disk Utility and install an older version of Mac OS X to get OS 9 or Classic.

4.) "Partition failed with the error: Filesystem verify or repair failed."

5.) You can backup everything, repair and partition from the Disk Utility provided on the Leopard Install Disks.

6.) I can't backup everything (I have no external harddrive and Time Machine won't work on my G4), and I do not have the Leopard Install Disks.


I'd REALLY hate to give up after all my effort to play these stinkin' games on my increasingly obsolete Mac (we got Lion coming out already?), is there some way around this? Do I really need the disks? That seems like a major error.

 

[baggss]

What G4 iMac do you have? They should all support OS9....

 

[MasterDogma]

1.25 GHz PowerPC

Someone at Apple.com told me my computer's not compatible.

 

[baggss]

Yeah, I think you are right. The early versions of that iMac supported OS9 but that one doesn't.

 

[harryb2448]

And you will not b able to install an older OS X than what your iMac came with. Like time, there is no going backwards.

 

[gsahli]

Wait - I didn't notice you are using Leopard.....
(You did know you can use Classic on 10.4 without an OS 9 partition, and without being able to boot OS 9, right? So, you didn't say - can you set up a separate drive for 10.4? Then you'd have Classic. You'll need a working OS 9.1, 9.2.1 or 9.2.2 System Folder to copy to the 10.4 drive.)

Another wait - I don't have an iMac G4 - can you boot from an external drive?