Booting off USB with Power Mac G4 Graphite (500Mhz AGP)

[iKokomo]

Having a copy of OS 9 on CD, I have to put it on either a USB DVD drive or Flash drive due to problems with internal DVD.

Is it possible to boot the operating system from either a USB DVD drive or Flash drive?
Thanks!

 

[pigoo3]

Having a copy of OS 9 on CD, I have to put it on either a USB DVD drive or Flash drive due to problems with internal DVD.

Just to verify. Are we really talking "classic" OS 9 from the late 1990's?

...I have to put it on either a USB DVD drive or Flash drive due to problems with internal DVD.

The internal DVD drive could be replaced…or you could purchase an external USB DVD drive.

Is it possible to boot the operating system from either a USB DVD drive or Flash drive?

Absolutely it is possible to boot from an external USB DVD drive. And in theory a USB thumb drive/flash drive should work too.

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

PowerMac G4's do not boot off external USB drives. All PowerPC, apart from a few of the last G5 iMacs models, cannot do it. Thumb drive? Never tried it them drives were not around eighteen years ago.

I take it this is the same G4 you asked about yesterday? Without dampening your enthusiasm G4's are just too old, and please do not take it on the 'net.

 

[pigoo3]

PowerMac G4's do not boot off external USB drives. All PowerPC, apart from a few of the last G5 iMacs models, cannot do it. Thumb drive? Never tried it them drives were not around eighteen years ago.

I thought you could Harry. I guess my "young" mind is failing me!

I know I can boot my 1986 Mac Plus with an external hard drive…and not a Powermac G4?? Apple's weird workings I guess!

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

Nick all G4's prior to the FW800 MDD model came with USB1. I have read some PowerMac G5's with USB2 will boot from an external USB drive connected to a USB port on the computer using Open Firmware. this method requires more than a dozen Terminal Commands which I would not recommend to anyone other than a very, very experienced Mac user.

SCSI mdoels had an app called SCSI Probe which enabled this. Sort of like a Device Manager where you can select options. Scuzzy was designedf to boot from any Scuzzy drive. Maybe Nick USB1 never had the same capacity as scuzzy?

 

[dtravis7]

I thought you could Harry. I guess my "young" mind is failing me!

I know I can boot my 1986 Mac Plus with an external hard drive…and not a Powermac G4?? Apple's weird workings I guess!

- Nick

Nick, that uses a SCSI bus and yes you could daisy chain SCSI externals and boot from any of them. On the Power PC G3 and G4 and even my last generation iMac G5 Power PC no USB drive would ever boot. There are faqs all over the net backing that up. Many never tried so really do not know.

I have never had one G4 or Power PC Mac that would boot from any USB device.

 

[dtravis7]

Nick all G4's prior to the FW800 MDD model came with USB1. I have read some PowerMac G5's with USB2 will boot from an external USB drive connected to a USB port on the computer using Open Firmware. this method requires more than a dozen Terminal Commands which I would not recommend to anyone other than a very, very experienced Mac user.

SCSI mdoels had an app called SCSI Probe which enabled this. Sort of like a Device Manager where you can select options. Scuzzy was designedf to boot from any Scuzzy drive. Maybe Nick USB1 never had the same capacity as scuzzy?

I remember reading that. I just know without all the terminal stuff they refused to boot from USB.

To the OP, just get an IDE CD or DVD drive and it should boot from the CD. They are so cheap on New Egg these days. Just be sure the drive is IDE/ATA and not SATA.

 

[pigoo3]

Nick, that uses a SCSI bus and yes you could daisy chain SCSI externals and boot from any of them.

Yes…definitely knew this.

On the Power PC G3 and G4 and even my last generation iMac G5 Power PC no USB drive would ever boot. There are faqs all over the net backing that up. Many never tried so really do not know.

Yes it's been a while since I've messed around with any of my G4's.

- Nick

 

[dtravis7]

Yes…definitely knew this.



Yes it's been a while since I've messed around with any of my G4's.

- Nick

Same here but that always bugged me that I could not boot from any USB drive.

I just checked New Egg and everything is now SATA. Found ONE IDE that cost 2x what the SATA drives cost! WOW! I would check Ebay.


One more thing I just remembered, for some reason my old iBook G3 that was given to me booted from my USB drive when I installed TIGER as the internal drive was CD only and would not run a DVD. Not sure why that worked.

 

[pigoo3]

Sounds like OP needs to replace the internal non-working optical drive (to get the described task done).

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

iKokomo have a hunt around any second hand computers shops in your area. The Pioneer DVR109-114 was used in both Mac and PC towers so you may be bale to pickup a second hand one cheap. Quite a few were taken out to be replaced by DL burners when Dual Layer became popular.