boot g4 from hard drive - USB or Firewire?

The Open Firmware boot process?
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384

Might read all of the possible caveats.

USB2 booting is not supported, therefore you should remember OS X has no support for booting USB 2 and the firmware has no support.

Without special work a rounds, a PPC/OS X does not support boot to USB drives.
And, some PPC Macs do not support the hacks.

When dealing with hard drives, and all of one's data, I don't believe in hacks.

Japamac,

Actually, I just booted off my USB drive and now am typing this to you currently. So, yes it does work, just that Apple doesn't recommend it though I read somewhere that booting off USB is possible on a powerpc mac. In fact, I remember starting with the sawtooth macs that the AGP graphics G4s allowed booting off of USB.

Whats confusing about this is: Do they mean USB with Mac OS 9.2.2, or with earlier forms of mac os x?

Actually, I am talking to you now through my USB drive I booted into, so it does work just that its not well known. But, Apple makes it known that beginning with sawtooth G4s, usb booting is indeed supported.

do they mean os 9.2.2 OR earlier forms of OS X?

Actually, I just booted off my USB drive and now am typing this to you currently

You also post regarding kernel panics when accessing the Startup manager......
Maybe related to this recent hack????

I won't know until either I can somehow get a snapshot of the kernel panic and upload it here. But again, I don't see how I can get it since the machine goes no further and ends with: we are hanging here..

Japamac, I found this article about USB booting with G4s on Apple's website. Please tell me what this means:
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
The Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and iMac (Slot-Loading) incorporate a separate 12-Mbps USB controller for each USB port. Now there is the potential to connect up to 127 devices to each port, as opposed to earlier USB-enabled Macintosh computers that support up to 127 devices connected to both USB ports.

What's New to USB?

Beginning with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and the iMac (Slot-Loading), two new features to USB are most apparent: support for USB audio devices and booting from USB drives.

bootable USB drives: A storage device such as a SuperDisk, Zip disk, or other USB storage drive can be used to hold a valid system folder and used at startup.

So, why is this unsupported on the PowerPC G4 and G5 if Apple so says its supported?

I am very happy that you found that article. It makes it easier to discuss a topic when we know everyone has read the basic reading materials.....

Yes, the potential is there. But, up until recently, many USB drive enclosures did not have the proper chipset or firmware to allow booting, even if the connected machine does. During the G4 era, bootable USB drive enclosures were not common.

As for USB 2.0, well, this is an unsupported feature, that has been resolved with correct hardware work-a-rounds.
But, again, because of hard drive enclosure chipset variations, firmware variations, and USB 2.0 controller chip variations, 100% success cannot be guaranteed.

In this thread, the OP was dealing with two very different machines, and had already encountered some of the problems with booting that I am aware of, and briefly detailed above.

For 100% success, firewire is the only way to go with PPC Macs.

If you want to mess around, hit or miss, USB/USB2.0 is fine.

But then, that brings up the issues of transfer rates and data transfer quality. In both of these issues, firewire is definitely, without exception, the better choice.
Firewire has much higher sustained rates of data transfer than USB1.1/USB2.0, and does not have the problems with data corruption during transfer due to low bus power, or interference by other USB devices.
USB is inferior to firewire for data transfer and storage needs.

I know USB is inferior to firewire. However, USB 3.0 is something I hope will be available in PCI card form so that I can take advantage of that protocol.

Strange as it may seem.. USB 2.0 boots quite fast on my system, and Leopard booted up in no time under USB 2.0, but you are right. Firewire is much faster though all I wanted to do was experiment with USB 2.0 drives and just add another option in case, for example, my firewire ports go dead. This is a troublesome problem on PPC macs from time to time. Resetting the ports helps, but its not something that should happen every single day though.

Sometimes I have to reset my firewire ports again if my DVD-RAM drive(firewire enclosure) isn't listed on system profiler.

Sometimes I have to reset my firewire ports again if my DVD-RAM drive(firewire enclosure) isn't listed on system profiler.

All of this (kernel panic, firewire issue) is starting to sound like controller problems on the logic board.
I hope, for your sake, that isn't the case, but, it sounds suspicious.

Could also be that the chipset of the firewire enclosure is the problem. Is it an Oxford chipset? Or, is it some other?

Japamac,

Do you by any chance have skype? I guess the best way to tell you about this kernel panic would be if you could skype me and possibly we both can resolve it.

controller problems? Wouldn't techtool pro or AHTCD pick those up? All problems associated with logic board as of now are negative, meaning none exist. Well, as far as the firewire DVD-RAM drive goes, its an Apple dvd-ram drive of 4.7GB capability and the name of the enclosure is by QUE. if this helps.

Give me please, some warning signs of controller problems on the logic board - I haven't seen any such problems as of this conversation though.

Hi-

The MacBook can boot off a USB drive, but a PPC Mac can't.
Firewire is the way for PPC, not USB.

Not true.. I booted last night my G4 MDD from a USB Drive, though I got the tip on how to do it from macfixit.com. I can post the tweak if you would like.

You can boot off of USB using a PPC, but you need to do a search for booting powerpc from USB drive. I did it, and it works great.

Yeah well, mine does.
Mine does support it.