Virtual Memory I/O error Mac OS 9 on IMac

[artguy]

A friend of mine is having problems with her IMac (OS 9, not sure of exact version) at home. On startup while each of the extensions load they get a "bomb" stating "Virtual Memory I/O error" which halts the machine. She is able to start up with extensions off.

They ran Norton Utilities 6.0 which found several errors and were able to fix most with the exception of the "Alternate Master Directory Block" which failed.

These 2 errors may have nothing to do with each other but just thought I'd list them to try to give all the info.

She is still not able to startup without it crashing. Is there something I should look into or try to attempt to correct this problem?

I just asked her to watch and see which extension it crashes after to see if we can start eliminating extensions to find a possible culprit (and if it crashes at a consistent point). If anyone has another suggestion, please let me know.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[jimbopalmer]

In MacOS 9, virtual memory is an option you can turn off.
Apple Menu > Control Panels > Memory and set virtual memory off.

See if that addresses that part of the problem. (Note with Virtual memory off, you will need more RAM to get the same abilities as with it on, RAM is cheap but installing it can be difficult.)

You may also find that with Virtual memory off you can correct the disk error (Virtual Memory uses disk space to emulate RAM) if not, you will want to do a complete back up then low level initialization of the Hard disk.

Once the Hard disk is fixed, you can turn Virtual Memory back on, it will be fine.


I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.