Glenn Schunemann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
I'll make one assumption: "Open Firmware" is the firmware on every Mac? Not only does the B/W G3 not support firewire booting, the firmware doesn't even support the Startup Manager (holding the Option key).
You are correct about the B&W G3 not supporting Firewire booting, from Apple KB:
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TITLE: FireWire Booting: What Computers Support It and How To
Article ID:58606 Created:2/22/00 Modified:9/16/03
TOPIC: This article describes FireWire booting and which computers support it.
DISCUSSION:
FireWire booting, as the name implies, is the ability to start up a computer from an internal or external FireWire drive.
FireWire booting is possible on all Macintosh models that have built-in FireWire ports with the exception of the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White) and the Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics) models. You may need to upgrade the computer's firmware before FireWire booting will work. You can download the latest firmware for your computer from the Apple Software Updates Web site at http://www.apple.com/swupdates.
Note: Do not confuse FireWire booting with FireWire target disk mode as described in article 58583: "FireWire Target Disk Mode".
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Open Firmware (from Apple Glossary):
Open Firmware-Open Firmware is a cross-platform firmware standard for controlling hardware and is used by all PCI-based Mac OS computers. You can start up in Open Firmware when troubleshooting. (this is done by keyboard input "Cmd-Opt-O-F"at Startup, which will give you an Open Firmware command prompt: > to which you can enter specific commands that control hardware, for example: "reset-nvram<return>" followed by "reset-all<return>" will produce the reply "OK" and then will Restart the computer from a default state. Other commands can mount specific drives, or perform other hardware control available in firmware.
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I don't know for certain, but I believe the B&W or PCI Graphics G4 could enable Firewire booting using xPostFacto 3.0a11. As I said before, xPostFacto adds extensions for "unsupported" machines, and also changes some of the boot load ordering. By using the "helper" internal drive, and then passing the boot off to the external Firewire drive, true Firewire booting is allowed. There should be very little danger in trying this. xPostFacto has an uninstall function that will remove everything. You'd need to "reset" the computer after uninstalling xPostFacto either by using the Open Firmware commands posted in the example above; or zapping the PRAM from a cold boot. It would be nice to know if Firewire booting works on the B&W. If someone out there has a B&W or PCI G4 and a Firewire drive, give it a try and report back if you have time. Kris Tilford
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