iMac won't boot from Firewire?

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Level 3

660 points

iMac won't boot from Firewire?

Hey gang-

I wanted to post this to save anyone else pulling out their hair if they have a Mac that won't boot from a Western Digital (WD) external Firewire drive. I recently purchased a Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive.

I bought this drive intending to partition it into two 1TB partitions- one for a bootable backup and one for a Time Machine backup. I do my bootable backups with the application SuperDuper, which is outstanding for this purpose. I have used it to create bootable backups on 3 different Maxtor external Firewire drives, and they have all flawlessly booted all my Macs. I expected no different from this new Western Digital (WD) 2TB drive.

Unfortunately, the WD would not boot 2 out of my 3 Macs when connected via Firewire. It would NOT boot an Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) or an Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does boot our Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition). Strangely, the WD booted all 3 Macs when connected via USB, though needless to say very slowly in all cases. If you need additional technical information, read on.

Technical Info: The following tests were done with the WD connected via Firewire. The WD is correctly formatted for booting Intel Macs with GPT GUID formatting. Note that the WD appears as a bootable drive in System Preferences->Startup Disk on all 3 of my Macs. But when attempting to boot via Firewire, I get only a grey screen on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). The Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition) boots normally. When booting with the Option Key held down, Startup Manager does NOT see the WD as a bootable drive on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does appear as a bootable drive on the Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition).

When connected via USB, the WD boots all three of my Macs, but very slowly compared to the internal drive.

It's probably worth noting that the Late-2007 MacBook and the Mid-2007 iMac all share the then-new Santa Rosa architecture. So I'm guessing that they may share the same Firewire chipset. And for whatever reason, that chipset does not play nice with the WD chipset.

So, bottom line is that if you need a Firewire bootable backup, be sure to test the drive right away so that you don't think you have a bootable backup when in fact you don't.

On the good side, the drive is amazingly quiet. At this point, I need to decide whether to keep the drive, knowing that I have only USB as a bootable option on 2 out my 3 Macs, or return it. But in any case, wanted to pass this on to anyone else having problems booting from an external Firewire drive.

iMac (24-inch Mid 2007), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 9, 2012 9:31 AM

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Answer 1

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

May 9, 2012 9:48 AM in response to Dave_K.

So do you think it's an Apple Firmware issue or a WD issue? Do you have any other HD's that you could try on your several macs?

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Answer 2

Dave_K. Author

Level 3

660 points

May 9, 2012 10:40 AM in response to RRFS

RRFS wrote:

So do you think it's an Apple Firmware issue or a WD issue? Do you have any other HD's that you could try on your several macs?

Well, as to whether it's an Apple or WD issue, I'm sure if you put an Apple Engineer and a WD engineer at the same table and asked them, you'd see lots of finger-pointing LOL! 😠

As to your second question, yes, I still have the 3 Maxtor external FW drives. All 3 happily boot all three of my Macs. So in that sense I guess you could say this is a WD issue. Also, during my research of this problem, I came across quite a few discussions of boot issues with WD drives- particularly on Santa Rosa Macs. Alas, I wish I had known that before I bought it.

Dave

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

May 9, 2012 1:04 PM in response to Dave_K.

FWIW, many WD HDs won't boot Macs and booting Macs isn't supported. Details at their site. That's the main reason I never recommend their crappy HDs.

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Answer 4

Dave_K. Author

Level 3

660 points

May 9, 2012 1:25 PM in response to baltwo

baltwo wrote:

FWIW, many WD HDs won't boot Macs and booting Macs isn't supported. Details at their site. That's the main reason I never recommend their crappy HDs.

Actually I'm very familiar with that list- spent a lot of time looking at this past week! 😮

Ironically, the majority of that page is a list of drives which they claim WILL boot Macs. In fact, the list is entitled "List of Mac-bootable WD external drives..."

And yep, mine is on there...on the list that reads "The following external hard drives should be bootable on Intel-based Mac computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b)" is "MyBook Studio" as well as my drive model number.

But that's all beside the point. Like you, I couldn't recommend their drives at this point. At least make sure if you buy one that the vendor has a good return policy.

Dave

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Answer 5

Nov 1, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Dave_K.

I came here after buying a WD "My Book Studio 1TB drive" specifically for to boot a early intel iMac off of.

More than frustrating... quite a bit of anger here at getting the **** thing, paying the firewire surcharge and then getting ... a useless and overpriced USB external drive instead.

Thankfully the iMac is a early intel machine and I can use the USB connection to get this machine working and breathing again.. but far from what I wanted and after a few hours of banging my head against the wall.

I'm installing the OS onto it (again) after partitioning the disk as I write this after confirming a previous OS install does indeed work as long as the Firewire is disconnected.

Why go through all the trouble vs replacing the HD?
I'm fixing a friends used system and I can't replace the broken internal HD due to stripped screws from the previous owner or a bozo tech's shoddy work.

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Answer 6

dwmusic

Level 1

10 points

Oct 11, 2014 6:36 AM in response to Dave_K.

I have the same issue, with a 2TB WD HD external, moreover the Mac wouldn't even see the drive at first, and then randomly did and then didn't see it. i was on the point of returning the drive, when as a last resort I decided to take it to another studio, reformat and recreate an OS bootable drive from a Time Machine backup, and it booted the iMac from which I was doing this, but fails to boot the 2007 Intel Mac Pro, even though the latter now sees the drive.

I really wonder why they don't test for such obvious things before releasing these products.

For some reason, Apple have put the "Save Reply" button not underneath the Reply, but underneath the opening post. At first I thought it had turned into Facbook, where Return/Enter now confirms a comment, but all it did was add lines, so I scrolled down, down, down, and found the Save Reply button.

Go figure.

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