TiBook can boot from external USB devices after all!

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Level 2

240 points

TiBook can boot from external USB devices after all!

For all these years it has been my state of knowledge that PowerBooks (and PPC Macs in general) cannot boot from external USB devices. After all I had read numerous claims to this effects in these forums and elsewhere. Well, I have just been disabused of this notion and want to share my experience with you.

Recently I made the observation that when restarting my PowerBook, the attached USB card reader's LED would flash up as if the card was scanned for bootable partitions. This made me curious, so I hooked up my external hard disk (which features both Firewire and USB connectivity) to USB and restarted the PowerBook with the alt key held down.

To my pleasant surprise, both the Mac OS X partition and the separate classic Mac OS partition on that drive showed up in the boot menu. Indeed I was subsequently able to successfully boot and run both Mac OS 9.2.1 and Mac OS X 10.4 from my external hard disk via USB!

Next I installed Mac OS 9.2.1 on a USB memory stick (which was not big enough to hold Mac OS X) and booted from that as well. Finally I tried the same on a CompactFlash card using my USB card reader and also had success with it.

Of course the TiBook's USB 1.1 ports are slow as molasses compared to FireWire, but nevertheless I imagine that being able to use them to boot the PowerBook can be quite useful on some occasions and for certain purposes. What do you think?

PS: I also tried a Cardbus USB 2.0 adapter, but it was ignored during startup. I don't know whether the TiBook's old firmware supports booting via any PCMCIA/Cardbus expansion at all, but it certainly would not support USB 2.0 anyhow.

PowerBook G4/400 Titanium

Posted on Apr 2, 2008 4:35 PM

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Answer 1

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Apr 3, 2008 7:11 AM in response to Frank F.

Hi, Frank. Though not supported by Apple, USB booting in OS 9 is possible on many PowerPC Macs. I'm very surprised, though, to hear that you can boot your Tibook into OS X from USB devices. I too had thought that was impossible. It is definitely not supported by Apple, though, and I would never, ever suggest to anyone that they could depend on being able to do it, because there may be limitations on that ability that you haven't discovered and I have no idea about. I wouldn't, for example, assure anyone who was looking to create a bootable clone of an internal drive that buying an external drive with FireWire capability wasn't necessary or useful, because they could always boot from a cheaper USB drive. Even if it works under some circumstances and/or on certain models, there are undoubtedly other situations in which it doesn't work. Explaining when it does and when it doesn't may be pretty complicated, and if it is, that's undoubtedly why Apple doesn't support it.

So while there's no harm and probably some delight in knowing exactly what you can do with your own Mac, it wouldn't be prudent to promise others that they'll be able to do the same with their machines. Encouraging experimentation never hurts, though!

Message was edited by: eww

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Answer 2

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 4, 2008 8:12 AM in response to eww

Update: I repeated my experiment with Mac OS X 10.3.9 and found that it was not able to boot from my external hard disk via USB. So apparently this ability is a feature which was not implemented into Mac OS X until version 10.4 "Tiger".

Of course I agree that FireWire is clearly preferable over USB for external drives in general and on a TiBook in particular. Nevertheless I think that there are a number of cases where booting a PowerBook over USB could make sense. Just think of the many early model TiBooks with blown FireWire ports, or imagine creating a handy, bootable USB stick with a minimal system and a well-assorted set of tools for specific purposes like hardware diagnostics and hard disk repair etc.

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Answer 3

PBookie

Level 2

216 points

Apr 4, 2008 9:16 AM in response to Frank F.

Hi Frank,
I tried to boot into OSX 10.4.11 on my 1GHz Titanium and only got the spinning wheel. Perhaps it would have eventually gone ahead and started up, but I ran out of patience waiting.

In OS 9 it was so slow that I doubt there is much value to this except, as you say, when the firewire port is dead or as an emergency flash drive fixer.

At any rate it is good to know that it is possible. Experimentation is the mother of invention!

Thanks

PB

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Answer 4

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 5, 2008 5:46 AM in response to PBookie

Hi PBookie,

could you please try it again sometime when you have another 5 minutes left? It took about 3 minutes until the login window appeared on my machine.

On the whole the boot process took about 4 times longer over USB than it did using the internal hard disk, which isn't that bad considering that my internal hard drive can read more than 30 MB/s. whereas USB 1.1 limits the effective throughput to less than 1 MB/s. according to Xbench.

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Answer 5

PBookie

Level 2

216 points

Apr 9, 2008 10:55 AM in response to Frank F.

Hi again Frank,
Well, I took a few extra minutes this morning to see if I could boot my 1GHz Titanium into OSX 10,4,11 on an external 120gb 5400 Hitachi Hard Drive in an USB enclosure. It took some time, but eventually did startup. It was slow, and I had a problem hooking up to the internet, but as you say it is great to know that this is possible in a panic situation with an internal hard drive.
I wonder if my problem with the internet was because Airport was turned on for the internal hard drive, causing a confusion between the two?
At any rate, I can vouch for the ability to startup in OSX with an external USB hard drive. I hope that I never have to use this info, but it is nice to store in the back of my memory just in case!
Have a Great Day
PB

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Answer 6

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Apr 9, 2008 3:52 PM in response to Frank F.

Frank — here is Apple's very brief (and rather curiously worded) comment on the subject:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474

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Answer 7

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 10, 2008 1:57 AM in response to PBookie

Hi PBookie,

thanks for taking the time and verifying that the last Titanium model can boot from USB just as the first one.

Regarding your internet problem, I have no idea what may be causing it, but assume that it is related to the contents of your external hard drive rather than to the fact that it is connected via USB. I bet that if you would transplant the drive into a FireWire enclosure and boot from it, the results would be the same.

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Answer 8

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 10, 2008 4:10 AM in response to eww

Hi eww,

I know this article. However, it was first posted in 2001 and last updated in 2004 - well before the release of Mac OS X 10.4, which apparently made it possible to boot via USB.

Anyhow it's safe to assume that this feature, even if it seems to work fine, is still not officially supported.

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Answer 9

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Apr 10, 2008 4:46 AM in response to Frank F.

…the release of Mac OS X 10.4, which apparently made it possible to boot via USB.

Not true — many people with many different Macs running 10.4 have tried and can't do it. Some can. The most informative sentence in the article is the one that begins:

Although some configurations may allow a USB volume to be selected as a startup volume via the Startup Manager, this may not work for all…

And indeed it doesn't. There is no documentation of which ones will and which won't. The curious user can give it a try. If it works, great. If not, well, that's no surprise.

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Answer 10

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 10, 2008 8:59 AM in response to eww

On my PowerBook, Mac OS X version 10.3.9 cannot not start via USB, whereas version 10.4 can. So some addition or change in Mac OS X 10.4 made it possible.

I did not mean to claim that it works the same on all Macs and configurations. However, considering that it worked on both a 400 MHz and a 1 GHz model, it seems more likely than not that it might work on any TiBook with Tiger.

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Answer 11

PBookie

Level 2

216 points

Apr 10, 2008 12:22 PM in response to Frank F.

Frank,
I am pretty sure this won't work on any Aluminum PowerBooks or perhaps on anything with USB 2.2. I have read that it has something to do with reduced wattage to these ports.
My 1.25 won't recognize USB peripherals until it has started up, so impossible to use something that isn't yet identified to start it up.

I also tried it on a G3 & on a G4 Pismo, both running OSX 10.4.11 and the external USB drive is not recognized on either one until they had started up.

Why it worked on your Titanium and on mine I have no idea, but evidently it isn't something common to other Apples.

PB

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Answer 12

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Apr 10, 2008 12:50 PM in response to Frank F.

It seems likely to you, Frank. But after being around here for quite a while and reading every post in the Tibook forums for more than four years, I'm not so confident that I understand all the factors in play, or that what works on one Tibook will necessarily work on another. So I think it's unwise and unhelpful for you to keep encouraging others to expect, let alone depend on, results similar to yours. You've benefited from a happy accident. If USB bootability on PowerPC Macs were a feature of Tiger, Apple would have said so.

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Answer 13

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 11, 2008 6:59 AM in response to eww

First of all, let's restrict this discussion to the PowerBook Titanium models (which are the topic of this thread and this forum after all).

I believe (but don't claim as a fact) that all TiBooks can boot into Mac OS X 10.4.x via their built-in USB ports. Are there any first-hand field reports from people who have tried exactly this but failed? Then please point me to those.

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Answer 14

Karbon

Level 2

294 points

Apr 15, 2008 1:45 AM in response to Frank F.

Well, this is taking it away from your original form too, but...

I have booted both a iBook Clamshell (366 SE - no firewire) and my old G3 upgraded PM9600 (with a usb/fw PCI card) from an external USB drive under both OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.3.9. I have also cloned the Clamshell under Panther onto an external USB drive and it was bootable - I even re-installed Panther on it through an external USB DVD drive. But I kinda agree with eww's points; it was a cute parlour trick, but maybe it's because I'd read so much about it not supposing to work, but I didn't, and wouldn't count on it on a regular basis. I was in a bind at the time and took a chance, but it was a bit wonky in performance, so I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't need to rely on that option anymore. I think for the PCI card, I had to designate the usb drive as the startup drive in System Preferences - it wasn't a freestyling startup choice.

I'm typing this on a TiBook 667 mhz running Tiger, but when I have some free time, I'll change some stuff around and see if it will boot from either an USB drive on either Tiger or Panther.

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Answer 15

Frank F. Author

Level 2

240 points

Apr 15, 2008 6:21 AM in response to Karbon

Hi Karbon,

it's interesting to hear that even Mac OS X 10.3.9 can boot via USB at least on some machines like your iBook. When I tried this on my PowerBook G4/400, I could see and select the respective partition in the boot menu, then the gray screen with Apple logo and spinning progress indicator appeared, but after some time the Apple logo was replaced by a prohibitory sign the start activity ceased.

By the way, I never see Mac OS X partitions on USB drives as choices in the startup disk pane of the system preferences, at least not in Tiger booted from my internal hard drive. Nevertheless they appear in the boot menu when I start up the machine with the option key held down.

Please let us know your results in booting Panther and Tiger from a USB drive on your 667 MHz DVI PowerBook when you find the time to try it!

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