I’ll admit up front I don’t own a MAC and I am mediocre when it comes to troubleshooting that OS. When you formatted the disk in disk utility did you use the options button and pick Apple Partition Map and uncheck the drivers for OS9 (I think that’s what it should say) and then reboot your system afterwards?
You can also try running First Aid from the disk utility and check for any fixable errors through permissions and such along with using the bootable OS CD for extensive repairs, but that is a procedure you will have to refer to Apple support for with the finer details of performing these functions.
Sometimes you may find that when you are using an older OS, newer items such as hardware and more commonly software might not work in that particular system. I would still update the firmware if applicable after completely removing any versions of the Smartware application from your system. Double-check with Apple support for any new updates as you will find that most software manufacturers release new products with the latest OS versions in mind. I apologize if none of this helped you further. Still, reaching out to the MAC community would be a great outlet for information and further troubleshooting.
