problems booting 10.4.11 from ext firewire drive

Birchbarkbob · Birchbarkbob #1 (**permalink**)

11-02-2009, 02:56 PM

hey there, anyone can give assistance, i thought i did it all by the books, but still am not able to boot 10.4.11 from my la cie rugged 500 GB drive.
here the history:
I first got myself super duper, and made a clone off my 60 GB ailing original internal drive in my ibook g4 onto a 160 GB Western Digital drive hooked up temporarily as an external drive in a firewire enclosure.
It all went super duper as advertised.
then i swapped drives, installing the 160 GB Western Digital in the place of the 60 GB original.
All went Super Duper again, booted perfectly, behaves well, happy customer!

That's when i bought the external La Cie Rugged 500GB firewire drive. I wanted to have my mac with me when travelling by bike, yet not have the weight of the thing with me. So i partitioned the drive 4 ways.
one 160gb partition to clone my i books new internal harddrive's content and operating system 10.4.11 to.
Again using super duper, that seemed to all go well.
So now i have been on my trip for a while and everywhere i happen upon a mac i go into Startup disk and my boot partition shows up beside the one of the computer where my La Cie is firewired to.
<then when i click on restart, the Powerbook g4 i'm having access to right shuts down and ends up booted again from it's own 10.4.11
Strange i think,
in finder my La Cie shows up with all 4 partitions, the bootable one aswell and i can access all files and data, but seem unable to boot from it.

Any ideas?
Thank you very much indeed.
robbbert in finland's autonomous åland archipelago, month 5 of the bike trip begun in may

harryb2448 · harryb2448 #2 (**permalink**)

11-02-2009, 10:12 PM

PowerPC machines, all G3, G4 and most G5's, generally cannot boot from USB, even USB2 drives, as it is too slow. You need to be backed up on a Firewire external drive, formatted Mac OS Extended (Journalled) and Apple Partition Map, even if using one partition.

La Cie have had Mac problems and earlier this year discontinued Mac support.

csegeek · csegeek #3 (**permalink**)

11-03-2009, 08:44 PM

Birchbarkbob

If I'm reading correctly your lacie drive is firewire right ...

I am not sure why its not able to boot to it .. I have been using superduper to clone drives for months and have yet to have it let me down.. but I have been cloning drives with only 1 partition not multiple.. I am wondering if the multiple partitions have messed up the boot structure some way shape or form ... have you tried re-imaging it?

Have you tried System Preferences Startup Disk? telling it to boot to the external?

Tis odd.

bobtomay · bobtomay #4 (**permalink**)

11-03-2009, 09:11 PM

Mulitple partitions should not matter. Have one of my externals with 3 partitions. Two of them bootable. One partition with 10.5, one with 10.6 and via SuperDuper!

My understanding (as I'm a newb, never owned a PPC) is that PPC required Apple partition map and Intels require a GUID partition table. I have never tried booting my backup on another Mac, but I would guess this would still hold true trying to boot from an external, same as the internal drive.

It could be a matter of your backup just not having the drivers that are required to boot the hardware of the Mac(s) you are now trying.

harryb2448 #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Nov 28, 2007 Location: Nambucca Heads Australia Posts: 14,262 Mac Specs: iMac i5 2.7GHz OS X.8.3	11-02-2009, 10:12 PM PowerPC machines, all G3, G4 and most G5's, generally cannot boot from USB, even USB2 drives, as it is too slow. You need to be backed up on a Firewire external drive, formatted Mac OS Extended (Journalled) and Apple Partition Map, even if using one partition. La Cie have had Mac problems and earlier this year discontinued Mac support. Last edited by harryb2448; 11-02-2009 at 10:18 PM.
	QUOTE Thanks

bobtomay #4 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 22, 2006 Location: Texas, where else? Posts: 22,036 Mac Specs: 15" MBP 2.33 C2D 256 4GB, MBA 13" i7 1.8, MB 2.0 2GB, Nano 4th, 3GS, iPad 1	11-03-2009, 09:11 PM Mulitple partitions should not matter. Have one of my externals with 3 partitions. Two of them bootable. One partition with 10.5, one with 10.6 and via SuperDuper! My understanding (as I'm a newb, never owned a PPC) is that PPC required Apple partition map and Intels require a GUID partition table. I have never tried booting my backup on another Mac, but I would guess this would still hold true trying to boot from an external, same as the internal drive. It could be a matter of your backup just not having the drivers that are required to boot the hardware of the Mac(s) you are now trying. I cannot be held responsible for the things that come out of my mouth. In the Windows world, most everything folks don't understand is called a virus. Last edited by bobtomay; 11-03-2009 at 09:17 PM.
	QUOTE Thanks

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problems booting 10.4.11 from ext firewire drive

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Birchbarkbob #1 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 18, 2008 Posts: 1	11-02-2009, 02:56 PM hey there, anyone can give assistance, i thought i did it all by the books, but still am not able to boot 10.4.11 from my la cie rugged 500 GB drive. here the history: I first got myself super duper, and made a clone off my 60 GB ailing original internal drive in my ibook g4 onto a 160 GB Western Digital drive hooked up temporarily as an external drive in a firewire enclosure. It all went super duper as advertised. then i swapped drives, installing the 160 GB Western Digital in the place of the 60 GB original. All went Super Duper again, booted perfectly, behaves well, happy customer! That's when i bought the external La Cie Rugged 500GB firewire drive. I wanted to have my mac with me when travelling by bike, yet not have the weight of the thing with me. So i partitioned the drive 4 ways. one 160gb partition to clone my i books new internal harddrive's content and operating system 10.4.11 to. Again using super duper, that seemed to all go well. So now i have been on my trip for a while and everywhere i happen upon a mac i go into Startup disk and my boot partition shows up beside the one of the computer where my La Cie is firewired to. <then when i click on restart, the Powerbook g4 i'm having access to right shuts down and ends up booted again from it's own 10.4.11 Strange i think, in finder my La Cie shows up with all 4 partitions, the bootable one aswell and i can access all files and data, but seem unable to boot from it. Any ideas? Thank you very much indeed. robbbert in finland's autonomous åland archipelago, month 5 of the bike trip begun in may
	QUOTE Thanks

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