Quick question: USB booting on G4s?

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Level 3

566 points

Quick question: USB booting on G4s?

Ok, I know I read somewhere that beginning with the sawtooth macs one can boot using USB. But, I am unclear if this was meant for only booting USB volumes with OS 9 on them. Can someone clarify what Apple says with regards to the G4s being able to boot off USB drives?

Power Macintosh 2003 G4 MDD 1.25DP System w/ 2MB L3 Cache/2GB PC2600U, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Apple 4.7GB DVD-RAM Drive/BenQ 16x Superdrive/Plextor 16x Superdrive

Posted on Mar 25, 2009 1:34 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 25, 2009 5:42 AM in response to Nadav

Power PC Macs, G5 & below, will not boot from USB drives, but can boot from firewire drives. The Intel Macs can boot from either. See http://macs.about.com/od/peripherals/bb/exthd.htm

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 2

Mar 25, 2009 7:01 AM in response to Nadav

Hi, Nadav -

This Apple KBase article addresses that -
Article #TA25908 - USB Info and Benefits of Dual-Channel USB

Machines which qualify and are OS 9 bootable can boot to a USB drive using OS 9. Early versions of OSX, at least up through OSX 10.3, are not USB bootable regardless of machine capability. Not sure about later versions of OSX - as Tom indicated, it may also require that the machine be an Intel-based one.

Booting to USB is not a good idea, though, except perhaps in an emergency when there is no other choice. All machines which are OS 9 bootable have a USB 1.1 port - this is just too slow for any real use of an OS. USB 2.0 does not appear on machines until the G5 models, and even USB 2.0 is slower than firewire 400 for sustained use.

Given that all OS 9 bootable machines which are USB bootable have a firewire 400 port and are also firewire bootable, use of a firewire drive is far better. Getting a small firewire drive (the little pocket-size ones work well and are not expensive) and placing a universal (boot any Mac) install of OS 9 on it will allow the drive to be used to boot any qualifying Mac.
Article #HT2699 - FireWire Booting

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Answer 3

Nadav Author

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Mar 25, 2009 8:37 AM in response to Don Archibald

Well, my computer just booted into Leopard via a USB drive, and it didn't take long at all. Perhaps, maybe just maybe os x's before leopard and possibly tiger are not supported to boot through USB. I haven't tried panther or Jaguar, or even OS 9.2.2 itself.

What turned out to be just an excercise just turned out to be an optional boot device for my computer. Hands down! firewire is the best option and fastest, but USB 2.0 on my system is rather fast.

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Answer 4

Nadav Author

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Mar 25, 2009 8:44 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Well, mine does and it does it rather nicely. Could it be that we are all missing something here? Maybe USB booting isn't supported under say 10.2 or 10.3, but under Tiger and Leopard esp it is indeed supported. The very drive I booted to booted up Leopard in under 20 secs. This was a USB 2.0 drive.

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Answer 5

Nadav Author

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Mar 25, 2009 11:46 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Well, mine does boot Leopard off a USB device. Though not present within the start up disk portion of the OS, it IS present in the start up manager before boot up.

Maybe USB booting is not supported in older OS X's, but maybe in Tiger and Leopard it is. I don't know, I will have to test tiger and maybe Panther.

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Answer 6

Mar 25, 2009 1:27 PM in response to Nadav

Are you plugged into the USB 1.1 ports on the rear of the Mac, or do you have a USB 2.0 PCI card? USB 1.1 is about 20 times slower than USB 2.0. Firewire 400 is about 2X faster that USB 2.0. I believe that when booted in OS 9.x, you only get USB 1.1, even on a PCI card.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 7

Nadav Author

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Mar 25, 2009 1:28 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

is that a trick question? 🙂 Of course, I am plugged into the USB 2.0 card and so far things are working perfectly with my portable USB device. Well, it was originally my 120GB hard drive, and for some reason I want to use it with time machine, but Leopard says that my drive is too small for use as a time machine drive.

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Answer 8

Daniel W

Level 2

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Mar 29, 2009 5:46 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

I can confirm this - USB 2 card or not, 1.1 speed is all that works - trust me, I have 2 cards installed! (Woo 6 USB ports and 4 FW!) My Sawtooth G4 can't boot up under USB, as far as I know - last time I tried, it didn't work. Still, I only had Panther and OS 9 at that point - donno under Tiger.

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Answer 9

Nadav Author

Level 3

566 points

Mar 29, 2009 7:39 PM in response to Daniel W

Ok, as many of you know on a MDD or FW800 and beyond, it is possible to boot off USB 2.0 external drives, though one would have to select the drive through the system boot manager by pressing option key before booting. It will NOT work if you try to select it within startup disk option inside the OS.

So, you tried to install Leopard on the USB drive and you went into system boot manager and you didn't see the drive there?

Try Tiger or leopard.. I have not tested panther or Jaguar.

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