Panther no longer recognizes classic system folder!

[enginerd]

I have a PM G5 running 10.3.9 and classic. Suddenly on boot, classic wouldn't start. I checked the prefs and it no longer sees any os 9 volumes to start from. I checked the hard drive and the system folder is certainly still there, but I noticed Finder displays it as a regular folder without the '9' in the icon. All the files in there seem fine and everything else is working.
What can I do?? I tried reblessing the folder--it executed without any errors, but also any confirmation that something actually happened.
Anything else I can try?

 

[Will Cheyney]

Re-installing OS9 ought to sort you out.
Why are you still using Classic anyways?

 

[enginerd]

I ended up having to reinstall classic and did the trick, so some prefs files got messed up as expected. Still wasn't much trouble.
Anybody have an idea what could have caused that?

It's an office mac that still runs quark 4--hopefully they'll move to indesign soon...