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Q: Voyager Q SATA dock isn't allowing booting up via firewire

For my MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, I have just purchased the Newertech Voyager Q SATA dock with firewire 400, 800, esata and USB 3.0

 

The only problem is, while it's advertised that you can boot from external drives using this, on my MacBook Pro, I am completely unable to boot via firewire 400 or 800.

 

This is definitely one of the newest models, as it doesn't look like the quad interface models friends of mine have had for years.

 

I am going to contact Newertech, but I thought I'd at least reach out to the Apple community here as well.

 

I've tried two different SATA drives just in case there was something about the first SATA drive I was using that was preventing booting up via firewire, but no luck.

 

The really interesting thing is I CAN boot up via USB, but since my MacBook Pro only has USB 2.0, it's definitely a lot slower than firewire 800 and not nearly as desirable.

 

I can access any drives while the computer is booted up from my internal drive's OS. They mount on the desktop via firewire just fine.

 

But when I boot up and hold the option key so I can choose what drive to boot up from, the external drive in the SATA dock doesn't show up AT ALL via firewire.

 

It only shows up when I stay on that screen (where you choose the boot drive after holidng option while powering up) and plug in the USB cable instead of firewire.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Aug 26, 2012 9:35 PM

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Q: Voyager Q SATA dock isn't allowing booting up via firewire

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  • by DigitalDuderino,Solvedanswer

    DigitalDuderino DigitalDuderino Aug 27, 2012 2:17 PM in response to DigitalDuderino
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 27, 2012 2:17 PM in response to DigitalDuderino

    Newertech says that in order to support capacities up to 4 TB, they changed the chipset on the new model so that booting via firewire is unfortunately no longer supported.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Aug 27, 2012 2:21 PM in response to DigitalDuderino
    Level 9 (53,936 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 27, 2012 2:21 PM in response to DigitalDuderino

    Thanks for the update!  I sometimes recommend this as a backup solution for PPC Macs so the new lack of Firewire booting is an important consideration.

  • by DigitalDuderino,

    DigitalDuderino DigitalDuderino Aug 27, 2012 2:24 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 27, 2012 2:24 PM in response to Limnos

    Yea, I was upset because this fact is NOT advertised on their website. I'm glad I can at least boot via USB, which will be fast on new machines with true USB 3.0 but slow on older machines with just 2.0.

     

    But now I need to find the old model, which seems difficult. I really want to boot via FW 800. That's a huge reason why I bought this.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Aug 27, 2012 2:39 PM in response to DigitalDuderino
    Level 9 (53,936 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 27, 2012 2:39 PM in response to DigitalDuderino

    Since Apple seems to be abandoning Firewire altogether, and it hasn't really been necessary for booting in the past 6 years, I guess Newer Technology are just staying up with the times. I never could figure out eSATA -- nothing seems to really need it.  Maybe you can find a used one on e-bay (I still need mine for my G4!).