USB SATA Bridge Behavior

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Level 3

564 points

USB SATA Bridge Behavior

Have just installed my old internal WD2500D hard drive into an OWC external drive case with a USB-SATA bridge built in. Have interfaced to my PPC PowerMac G5 via USB, and the drive is recognized by the G5. However, even though Mac OS X 10.4.11 is on the old HD, it does not show up as an optional start-up disk. Is this normal?

Also, once the drive had been hooked up, tested, and removed from the G5, attempting to boot the G5 resulted in a flashing Earth icon and nothing else. I had not changed my startup disk in System Preferences, but apparently the G5 "remembered" the USB drive was once connected and tried to start on it even though it wasn't there. Is this normal? (Eventually I booted using "Option" and selected my internal HD; the Network icon did not appear in the Option window.)

So the G5 is back to normal now, but what the heck was going on?

Thanks for reading!

Power Mac G5 (Early 2005), Mac OS X (10.4.11), 1997 Desktop G3

Posted on May 16, 2013 9:50 PM

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Answer 1

⚠️

Top-ranking reply

BDAqua

Level 10

246,419 points

May 16, 2013 10:15 PM in response to Bill Strohm

Hi Bill,

Open Disk Utiilty, Repair the drive... any diff?

Do you have a 10.4 Install Disc?

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Answer 2

--A--C--

Level 2

308 points

May 17, 2013 4:11 AM in response to Bill Strohm

Hi Bill,

Booting a PPC mac from USB 2.0, even with Apple partition map, was not possible until Apple tweaked the firmware on some machines halfway 2005 I believe. I see you have an early 2005 model. Only external Firewire drives were bootable back then.

(ext FW enclosures might be still available, (OWC), but quite expensive)

A quick google got me to this article about it.

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384

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Answer 3

Bill Strohm Author

Level 3

564 points

May 17, 2013 9:17 AM in response to BDAqua

BD Aqua,

Thanks for your input. I ran Disk Utility and it found a "minor" Volume Header error, which it fixed. However, if I restart with Option key down, I still see only my two internal hard disks. I think the answer is in the reply by "--A--C--" below.

Yes, I do have a 10.4 install disc.

--A--C--,

Thanks for your info and for that link, which I read through. It wasn't clear whether his rather complicated procedure would allow booting from my "USB Hard Drive" on my early 2005 PPC G5. Also I wonder whether I might screw something up in my G5 by going through that.

Any more advice?

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

246,419 points

May 17, 2013 9:41 AM in response to Bill Strohm

Aww geez, how'd I miss the G5 & USB booting!?? 😕

I doubt you'll mess anything up trying that method, I've booted several G4s using that method, but never got it to work on my late 2005 Quad G5.

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USB SATA Bridge Behavior