Booting from USB

Hey guys,

I have a small query here. I know its not possible to boot from a USB port on my PowerBook G4 (1.25Ghz 15" FW800), and would I be right in assuming it's because the ports are not powered at startup? But what if I add a USB card to the PC card slot? Would I be able to boot from that?

Thanks in advance!!

If the answer to my question above is 'Yes', would this product work?

The part where it says 'Supports Windows drivers' is a little bit of a problem as that usually means 'No Macs'. What are you trying to boot from the USB port? If for example you wish to boot from an external HDD, or an external optical drive, then Firewire is the only way as older PowerPC machines like ours will boot. USB, even USB2 is much too slow.

Only Intel machines can boot from USB2.

harryb2448 said:

The part where it says 'Supports Windows drivers' is a little bit of a problem as that usually means 'No Macs'. What are you trying to boot from the USB port? If for example you wish to boot from an external HDD, or an external optical drive, then Firewire is the only way as older PowerPC machines like ours will boot. USB, even USB2 is much too slow.

Only Intel machines can boot from USB2.

Click to expand...

A quick google search "Boot PPC mac from USB"
says you are not quite right about this.
(polite way of saying you are wrong);D

viWoody said:

A quick google search "Boot PPC mac from USB"
says you are not quite right about this.
(polite way of saying you are wrong);D

Click to expand...

I know for a fact the older G4 Towers will NOT boot from a USB External. Tried it many times. If you read all those URLs that showed up, most say only some of the newer Power PC Macs worked, but I personally have never been able to boot a PPC Mac from USB but all mine that I have tried it on are quite old.

Also the same exact drive booted on the same machine using Firewire. External USB/Firewire case.

Also note USB 2.0. Older Power PC Macs do not use USB 2.0.

Boot a PowerPC Mac from a USB2 drive


Also please don't be rude. What Harry said is very true in a lot of cases.

Don't worry about it thanks Dennis. We both know the futility of trying to boot from USB, despite what such a renowned, reliable source old Google is. Personally have tried to boot between 350 and 400 G3, G4 and G5 machines from USB and USB2 without a single success.

They just sit there and refuse to boot.

Thanks for the replies guys, very much appreciated.
I tried the step-by-step guide given in the link by dtravis7, but it didn't work for me.

harryb2448 said:

What are you trying to boot from the USB port?

Click to expand...

I run 2 OS - one on PowerBook's internal hdd and one on my external hdd (which has FW400 and USB2.0). However the bit of plastic in the middle of FW400 port broke away, and I just wondered if its possible to boot from USB. I just thought it would be cheaper to buy a pc card with USB rather than buy an hdd with FW ports.

Although after thinking about it for days, I came to a really really really expensive solution - I'm gonna get a 15" MacBook Pro! To be honest, I've wanted to for a long time. Even though the PowerBook is an awesome machine, 1.25 GHz PowerPC is not enough to get things done these days, even after a memory upgrade to 2GB. There's also the issue that a lot of stuff now needs an Intel processor to work ...


Anyways, thanks again for the comments/suggestions everybody!

Good for you jhonrox and all you needed was the excuse to lash out on the MBP! The external drive will now work just fine on USB. No doubt you joined the 'sit there and not boot' fraternity trying to boot the G4 from USB.

Ha ha that's right! I really shouldn't be 'lashing' out on a MBP right now (I'm just a college student and should be saving up for Uni) but MBP, like many other Apple products, are irresistable!

So yeah, I'll have it pretty soon .. hopefully!
Thanks again guys!!