" Mike:
Interesting discovery regarding two of your seemingly unrelated recent "problem" posts pertaining to the new 9.2.3 Start-Up Control Panel and external Firewire drives. I hope this note will help connect the dots somewhat for your readers. [most of the recent reports on FW drive startup problems were from starting up in OS X 10.1, not OS 9.x however.-Mike]

First, a reader commented that the new 9.2.3 Control Panel was on the OS X.1 update disk, but not on the Full Install version. In fact, this new control panel IS on the Full Install disk, located in the "Welcome to Mac OS X/Utilities" folder. [In the Utilities folder of the OS X 10.1 CD-Mike]

The importance of this new Control Panel (for me, anyway): After installing OS X.1 and checking everything out (i.e., switching between starting up from OS X.1 and 9.2.1), I noticed that my computer (Yikes G4) would freeze in 9.2.1 when I chose the Mac OS X Start-Up disk immediately after I clicked on "Restart" (using the Start-Up Disk 9.2.2 Control Panel. NOTE: The computer would also freeze if I chose "Restart" from the menu.) Investigating the cause of this freezing further, I found the conflicting culprit to be the "Toast Firewire Support 1.0.5" extension (from Toast 4.1.3). But since I have an external CD-RW Firewire drive connected (LaCie 12X10X32) which I use often, I investigated further since there is NO way I wanted to NOT be able to use my CD-RW drive (because I would have had to disable the Toast Firewire Support extension in order to switch to OS X.1 smoothly)..

THEN I read your comment about starting up 9.2.1 with the Firewire drive OFF, only turning on the drive AFTER starting up. [Actually my latest comments were to startup OS X with the FW drive disconnected for those that had problems booting or mounting FW disks in 10.1. However there have been past reports of problems booting 9.1 with some FW drives connected.-Mike]
So I tried that, burned a few CDs, then used the 9.2.2 [installed by OS 9.2.1 update-Mike] Start-Up Control Panel to start up from OS X.1...and it worked!!! (So thanks for the tip, Mike.)

But THEN I discovered the newer 9.2.3 Control Panel on the OS X.1 disk. And this Control Panel fixed ALL the problems described above. Now I can start up in 9.2.1 with my Firewire CD-RW in the ON position (OR in the OFF position), burn disks to my heart's delight, then use the new 9.2.3 Start-Up Disk Control Panel to restart in OS X.1 with no problem whatsoever.

Sorry this note is so long...but I wanted to fully explain what I found. I*ve got to believe this new Start-Up Disk Control Panel (9.2.3) is essential if one is switching between 9.2.1 and OS X.1 AND one has (at least) external firewire drives attached. Now I can start with my firesire CD-RW drive in the ON position, burn disks, and be "freezeless" when I switch back to OS X.1. Hopes this helps!
Kevin Price"

I checked my OS 9.2.1 updated Macs here - the startup disk control panel was v9.2.2. I also checked my OS 10.1 update CD - there is a 9.2.3 Startup disk control panel and related readme file in the Utilities folder. The "About Startup Disk" file says:

" About Startup Disk version 9.2
The Utilities folder on the Mac OS X CD contains Startup Disk version 9.2, the control panel you use to select the startup disk for your computer. You need to use this version of Startup Disk to select a Mac OS X disk as your startup disk.

Important If you start Classic after installing Mac OS X, Classic installs this version of Startup Disk in the Mac OS 9.1 System Folder it uses.

To install the control panel when you are using Mac OS 9, drag it to the System Folder on your Mac OS 9 disk. If you are using Mac OS X, drag it to the Control Panels folder in your Mac OS 9 System Folder.

To use the control panel to select a Mac OS X startup disk:
1. Open the Startup Disk control panel and select the Mac OS X volume.
2. Click Restart to restart your computer.

For more information about starting up your computer, see Mac Help or the book, Welcome to Mac OS X. "

Despite that comment, I tested running classic in OS X 10.1, and even after the "updating" of files on the OS 9.2.1 system folder, the Startup Disk Control Panel was still v9.2.2. (It was not updated).

Perhaps unrelated, but I have seen cases where I had to use the "Option" key to boot Firewire drives in the past . (Noted in some of the Firewire reviews here.)

If this tip helps with problems you've seen with Firewire CDRW (or hard drives) being connected/powered during booting, please let me know.