Kris Tilford wrote:
On Jan 7, 2010, at 11:11 PM, John Carmonne wrote:
Please inform how to boot from USB on PPC machines.
The clamshell iBooks, the colored iMacs, the dual-USB iceBooks, and
perhaps some of the early PowerMac desktops can boot from their internal
USB 1 ports, but it is generally problematic, slow, and only a last
alternative.
There are some provisos, and don't ask me why, I only know these from
trial & error personal experience.
The external USB drive need to be self-powered because the power to the
USB port comes on later in the boot process, so small HD's that are
powered over the USB cable generally can't boot because they're powering
up too late. If they can be powered by another source so that they're
spinning prior to boot they should boot. I've never booted USB Flash
sticks, but there are reports of these booting on clamshells so I assume
they boot.
If you hold down the option key at boot it should work. It did with me,
I booted a G3 iMac from a 2.5" drive in a USB/FW case using the USB
interface, it had no external power supply. Anyways I used the option
key selection method and it worked okay.
If you select the USB drive in Startup Disk it MUST be from OS 9.x and
NOT from OS X. OS X's Startup Disk will NOT allow USB selected devices
to boot (I don't know why?). Also, when a USB drive is selected from OS
9, it may not boot. The Option key at startup is another alternative,
but again, the USB device MUST be powered and ready to go when you hit
the startup. The Option key boot is FLAKEY with USB, and sometimes the
bootable USB device will NOT show up as an option. In this case you will
need to TRY AGAIN. Normally the simple way is to use Cmd-Ctl-Power to
restart and then back the the Option key. If you're not getting anything
you can cycle the power on the USB drive DURING the early boot, and/or
replug the USB cable WHILE the computer is still looking for bootable
devices (while the spinning cursor is shown before changing to a normal
pointer). I've had to try as many as 20 times before being give the
option of the bootable USB drive.
You can click on the curved arrow and it should search for startup disks
again.
When given the option, highlight it and click, and it should boot
normally. The problem is that it's very slow. I've booted my clamshell
iBooks and my 500 MHz iceBook from USB, and each time is usually tough.
Once it boots, I've never had any problems during the installation (or
repair if I was booting for disk utilities). It's just the initial boot
that causes problems, and it can take MANY tries before it boots.
I've also attempted to boot newer PPC Macs with USB 2.0 with NO SUCCESS.
The two models I've specifically tried are the Mini G4 and the PowerMac
G5. I've read that some sort of open firmware commands might enable
booting from USB 2.0 on these newer PPC Macs, but these did NOT work for
me, and I was unable to boot from USB on any PPC Mac that came with USB
2.0, but have successfully booted most PPC Macs that came with USB 1.0.
I don't think I've tried any of the newer machines.
In my case I needed to boot my Clamshell iBook from a USB DVD drive to
install Tiger, no DVD drive and no FW. I was using XPostFacto to get it
to do the install. Yeah, it was slow but I just left it going and it
did the install.
The 2.5" HD I tried booting from probably just for kicks (it's been a
while). I do remember that I was startled that it booted.
Perhaps some day when I'm truly bored I'll investigate it further,
perhaps not.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting
"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"
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