Make external USB bootable???

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Hi all,

I've been reading up on the forums about booting from an external USB drive. I have an original 12in iBook G4 (800MHz) running Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

My reason for trying this is because my internal HDD is noting a failure in Disk Utility and is on it's way out so for the time being (until I can muster up the money for a new Hard Drive) I need to be able to boot from an external HD and the only one I have to hand is a Iomega 1TB.

Now, I have partitioned the drive to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and used CCC to copy all my files onto the drive, I also tried Pacifist which worked but would not let me boot after copying or even once enabling owners and journaling.

When I'm in Disk Utility and go to the Info on my external HD is says that the disk is bootable but I cannot see it in Startup Disk under my System Preferences.

Could anyone tell how this can be done? If you need anymore information just ask and I'll try my best to answer.

Thanks in advance,
James
 
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Hello, I don't believe a G4 iBook is capable of booting from a USB hard drive.
However, if your Iomega drive has a firewire connection it should boot through that.

Cheers :)

Hugh
 

chscag

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Note: Thread moved. Does not belong in "Anything Goes". Please read forum sticky prior to posting.
 
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Despite what you may read elsewhere, PowerPC machines do not boot from USB, even USB2. You need a Firewire external drive as suggested by hughtheslug.
 

Slydude

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chscag

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I saw that hint some time ago and it's true that in some instances you can get a PPC machine to boot from USB. The problem though is that it's hit and miss and doesn't work on every PPC machine.

It's still best to stick to booting from a firewire hard drive or firewire optical drive.

Regards.
 

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