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User profile for user: Mercutio-B
Mercutio-B Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Open Firmware of PowerMac3,3 G4 refuses to boot MacOS Tiger from USB

Hey guys,


I have a "nice" question from the Holocene, if you will, of Apple computers and hope that any "Methuselah" familiar with Open Firmware might take care of my problem and possibly have a conclusive answer ready.


My PowerMac3,3 boots from "Open Firmware"



without problems from the USB stick (a 32 GB SanDisk Cruzer Glide 3.0) with MacOS 9.2.2.


"boot usb0/disik@1:,\\:tbxi"


Preparing the same USB stick bootable with "Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Retail DVD.img" using Terminal the same way as with the "System 9.2.2" bootstick


sudo dd if=/path/to/Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Retail DVD.img of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1m



and plugging the USB stick also into usb0 I can locate the stick after "dev usb0" and "ls" ".../disk@1", but neither "dir usb0/disk@1:,\" shows me the directory of the "Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Retail DVD" nor do various attempts to boot from the USB stick work



eg


boot pci@f2000000/pci-bridge@d/usb@8/disik@1:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX

boot pci@f2000000/pci-bridge@d/usb@8/disik@1:,\\:tbxi


Everything ends after various messages leading nowhere



Help would be greatly appreciated 🙂


Cheers

Manfred

Posted on Nov 18, 2022 4:59 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Posted on Dec 7, 2022 1:03 PM

How was the Tiger .dmg made? Perhaps it is not an actual or proper image of the DVD as you would expect. Apple never released Tiger as a bootable .dmg except. Assuming this Tiger .dmg file was created from a retail copy of the Tiger DVD installer, and it was properly created from the DVD, AND if it was created without any compression, then using "dd" to burn the image to USB should be fine. However, many times the contents in a .dmg file are compressed, so what could have been a raw bootable image of the DVD is no longer a true raw image due to compressing some items. If this is the case, then mounting the .dmg and using "dd" to transfer the mounted image to the USB might get the result you are looking for here. But if you have access to a Mac to do this, then you are much better off using the Disk Utility "Restore" function to create the USB stick from the .dmg (or mounted contents of the .dmg).


I rarely used the Open Firmware option and I don't think I ever used it to attempt booting from a USB drive. So I cannot confirm whether your Open Firmware commands and paths are correct.


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Dec 7, 2022 1:03 PM in response to Mercutio-B

How was the Tiger .dmg made? Perhaps it is not an actual or proper image of the DVD as you would expect. Apple never released Tiger as a bootable .dmg except. Assuming this Tiger .dmg file was created from a retail copy of the Tiger DVD installer, and it was properly created from the DVD, AND if it was created without any compression, then using "dd" to burn the image to USB should be fine. However, many times the contents in a .dmg file are compressed, so what could have been a raw bootable image of the DVD is no longer a true raw image due to compressing some items. If this is the case, then mounting the .dmg and using "dd" to transfer the mounted image to the USB might get the result you are looking for here. But if you have access to a Mac to do this, then you are much better off using the Disk Utility "Restore" function to create the USB stick from the .dmg (or mounted contents of the .dmg).


I rarely used the Open Firmware option and I don't think I ever used it to attempt booting from a USB drive. So I cannot confirm whether your Open Firmware commands and paths are correct.


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User profile for user: Mercutio-B
Mercutio-B Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Dec 7, 2022 7:26 PM in response to HWTech

Hey HWTech,


HWTech wrote:

....you are much better off using the Disk Utility "Restore" function to create the USB stick from the .dmg (or mounted contents of the .dmg).


You are absolutely right.


Now my G3 as well as the G4 - and I assume it will be the same with the G5 - boot not only directly from the device's own USB ports as well as from an active USB hub without any problems, but also via the "open firmware"





Creating the USB stick via the restore function in the hard disk utility is clearly not only the more professional option but also the one that obviously works 🍎


Initially, I did not include the partition number of the USB stick in the open firmware commands, which led to some of the error messages listed earlier.


Many thanks to you for the helpful hint about the restore function of the hard disk utility.


I was very pleased to meet you here 🙂


Cheers and best regards

Manfred

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Dec 8, 2022 5:26 AM in response to Mercutio-B

FYI, if you create the .dmg without it being compressed, then it may be possible to use "dd" to "burn" the image to a USB stick. Or do so from the mounted .dmg volume. Might be a good experiment to try as it would allow you to use just about any newer computer to make the bootable USB stick in case Disk Utility itself ever changes it functionality in this regard or if you don't have a working Mac handy.


Glad to help and glad it worked for you. Enjoy keeping those systems running.

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Open Firmware of PowerMac3,3 G4 refuses to boot MacOS Tiger from USB

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