Can powermac g5 boot from USB?

Thanks so much japamac. Sadly, I didn't preserve that drive, because the new one wasn't formatted yet. At least I have all the installation DVDs, etc.

Sure does look like the Lynx from the report. I haven't done a firmware upgrade in like 4 years and I bought a new computer since then when lighting blew up my old one. Not sure if I can even do firmware upgrades on my newer home PC. Didn't even bother to remember that I might need one that can accept PCI cards for that. I may need to send the Lynx to the factory for firmware, unless they can do them straight from the Mac now. Time for legwork, as you said. Good times.

Thanks again JM for your altruistic support.

Got it! It was the Lynx driver that needed the update. Now it's finally time to format the new hard-drive. I still can't decide whether or not to make it journaled or not.

Once it's formatted, what's the best way to move the information over? Dragging it all? Migration Assistant?

Another guestion: can I put my old optical drive back in the bay hooked up, and if I do, while leaving my external OTC plugged in to FW800, which will it default to and how will I know?

Thanks again!! and again and again!

I still can't decide whether or not to make it journaled or not.

Journal it.

what's the best way to move the information over? Dragging it all? Migration Assistant?

From Tiger to Leopard? Use Migration Assistant or do it during the initial setup with the Setup Assistant.

Apps are best not "dragged" especially if those have various plugins involved.....

I'm going from Leopard to Leopard now. My old HD is officially upgraded. I formatted the new Seagate HD with a 2TB partition for a "Media Drive" and an 800GB partition for a "Boot Drive," both Journaled with APM. The icons are on my desktop now and all is well.

So, I have one (old) HD with Leopard and all my apps on it and another (old) HD with all my media on it. It looks like I need to make a disk image of each, using Disk Utilities, then... transfer them to each appropriate partition of the new Seagate. Will it tell me how to do that? I presume to do the Leopard HD first (to the 800GB "boot drive" partition), then the media HD (to the 2TB partition). All using Migration Assistant?

If you bought a new computer and you want it to be used exactly like your old computer you can use Migration Assistant. My last computer switchover I used Time Machine which can also do the job assuming you have a time machine backup. Now my new computer is exactly like my old computer only a whole lot faster.

When I upgraded from a 500 gig hard drive to it a 2T drive, I made a disk image of my 500 gig so that the new drive would be an exact clone of my 500 Gig drive.

Carbon Clone Copier. (Or CCC) is a simple program that makes an exact clone of one hard drive to another regardless of size difference and you can skip making a disk image. I noticed the program is still available but I haven't used it in a long time so I can't speak to the accuracy of the program. The reason I mention it is because it is much faster to clone one drive to another using this program.

Anyway, using disk utility is another way to clone a drive. After you make a disk image (which can take hours depending on the size of the volume and the speed of your computer) you will notice it in the bottom left-hand corner underneath all of your hard drives in disk utilities. Click on the disk image and disk utility will automatically switch over to "restore".

It will say, To copy a volume or restore a disk image to a volume, select the source volume or disk image, select the designation volume, and then click restore.

Pretty straightforward for transferring the contents of one hard drive to another assuming that is what you're wanting to do here.

Carbon Copy Clone failed. It showed that I copied 69GB into the 800GB 'boot drive' partition I made for it (AMP- journaled) from my original boot drive with Leopard on it, but it wouldn't boot on its own. Just showed that folder icon w/ the blinking question mark, so I put the old HD back in and "erased" the 'boot drive' partition from Disk Utility to start over.

Then I started to try Migration Assistant, but I don't understand it. Do I have to load Leopard onto my new HD separately first before I can use Migration Assistant (or CCC), then treat my new HD as "another computer" in Migration Assistant after it has the OS on it?

Almost there,

I really apreciate the assistance!

A CCC boot failure is more common than many here like to admit.

Use the free version of SuperDuper!. Bootable clones every time.

As for Migration Assistant, Yes, you need Leopard (an OS) installed on the drive.

Then, you can load data to/from "another drive on the computer" or words to that effect.

I'll try SuperDuper! Then for consolidating the 2nd HD, I'll try MA- I'm assuming I didn't see the option "another drive on the computer" because it didn't have an OS on it. Thanks again japamac. fingers crossed.

SuperDuper didn't work either. Ugh. All the stuff looks like it transfered, but it was not bootable. I guess I have to try installing Leopard on it first. Should I take out the original HD and just leave the new one in, with the install disk running? I don't want to erase anything on HD1.

You're sure having a time of it.... shouldn't be this hard.

Is the drive formatted with APM or GPT? It must be APM to be bootable.

In Disk Utility, under the Partition tab, create one (or more) partition(s) and then click the Option button. Make sure APM (Apple Partition Map) is selected.

Got it!! I'll tell you what I think happened, so others reading this thread might be helped.

Either one of two things probably happened: when I tried to use Carbon Copy Clone and it failed, I "erased" that boot partition in Disk Utility, but when I tried SuperDuper, that didn't work either. SO I just tried to load Leopard on the new disk, as I said I would. Turns out that it would not let me use the partition I made for the Boot Drive for Leopard either. This is surely why Super Duper didn't work. Either the first time I erased CCC corrupted the partition or it was corrupted from the getgo- I wonder if it's because I didn't use partition 1 as the boot drive. That could be it too. Anyway, once I reformatted the whole HD, I loaded Leopard, Migrated the stuff, then used Super Duper to move my media drive to the second partition. All's well and I'm not even getting any panic reports from DP when I shut down. Thanks so much.

Now there's just one more thing I want to know: can I plug in my old optical and have the OWC optical firewire too? When I go to burn something, would it default to one or the other or give me a choice? I'd like to put it back in the computer, as it's convenient.

can I plug in my old optical and have the OWC optical firewire too?

That shouldn't be a problem.

When I go to burn something, would it default to one or the other or give me a choice?

That will likely depend on the software used. OS X Finder services will most probably default to the internal, but I can't say for sure.

I'm glad to hear that you fianlly got things transferred and stabilized!

I guess you're right. I'll just have to try it out in iTunes v. Toast Titanium, etc. One thing I'm finding is that when I access apps on the new drive, it asks for the installer disk and code. Thankfully, I have everything, but it makes for more work than I thought.

Thanks again, and I hope that someone upgrading Tiger to Leopard on a PCC G5 (without the ability of the stock optical drive to read the Leopard installer disk), while simultaneously consolidating everything to a new partitioned Seagate HD (with a Lynx system!) learns what they need from this thread.

Okay, I got into Open Firmware, typed devalais and a bunch of code showed up. I don't see ud anywhere. I typed in the magic boot ud:,\\:tbxi and all I get is Can't open device or file.

Thanks in advance, folks!

Joe

Could you PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE suggest a model (with dual layer) that will work in Tiger 10.4.11, in order to load Leopard 10.5.1? THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!