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Need help finding a bootable external hard drive for a G4 Mini

Without going into details of a 3 month and counting 'nightmare' (several well-known vendors), I still can not find a hard disk drive that will still boot a PPC G4 Mini over Firewire 400. As I understand it, the Oxford (now J-Micron) 940-series chip-sets are not compatible with pre-2009 Macs. Can anyone provide clarity as to the precise requirements in this application and/or suggest a 1 to 2 TB drive that will still boot a PPC over Firewire? [And before anyone is stimulated to be 'cute' (snide), No, the G4(s) is not my only current Macs but I do have significant (valid to me) reasons to keep one working.]

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11), PPC G4 10,1

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 10:47 AM

Reply
8 replies

Jan 25, 2014 11:28 AM in response to lonewolfmtn

Hello, what size drive is it?

FireWire 400 Boot/Startup

User uploaded file

Mac: Intel Macs and some PowerPC Macs running OS 8.6 or later. Please note, pre-2008 Intel Macs and non-Intel Macs will not be able to boot external enclosures that have over 2.2TB support enabled. This is a hardware limitation of the computer.


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU4S7500G16/


Last time I tried one of these, my PPC Mini booted fine from it with a 2 TB Drive in it.

Jan 25, 2014 11:59 AM in response to BDAqua

RE: drive capacity- I do know about the "2.2 TB" issue - I'm hoping for 2TB but would gladly settle for 1 TB if I could find one that actual boots versus merely mount (if that). I've now 'been thru' 6 drives (attempts since Oct 13)) - all were claimed to be workable in my circumstance but they are not. I've been lead to believe that the Oxford 934 chip-set is the last one that will work, but no one that I can find is using these anymore. Even drives such a G-Tech's 2TB, which MacMall lists as having the 934 chipset, does not only not have this chipset (according to the manufacturer's techs) but never has. The OWC rant I could generate would require volumes to even summarize (and I might once I receive the alleged refunds). I'll look at that link (while holding my breath with crossed fingers). BTW, I've even tried some enclosures that have internal switches allegedly intended to disabled the so-called +2.2 TB support 'issue' and they don't work either. OWC claims that their "Product Development team" is (and has been) working on a fix (firmware for Oxford 940-series chips) but can offer no timeline as to when (if) this will ever become possible. A SSD drive would be fantastic as well, and there are even ones sold claimed to be compatible with G4's - but I do NOT believe it. If 'they' can't get a 'simple' HDD to boot a G4, I can't accept that a SSD will until proven to me in real-time meat-space.

Jan 25, 2014 12:31 PM in response to BDAqua

Okay, I just looked at that OWC Elite Pro (not that it was unknown to me previously) - and they're still claiming that it has the Oxford 934 chip set. (so far so good). OTOH, I've been in daily contact with OWC techs and senior mgmt for several months now and no one there has ever suggested this as a potential alternative. I've been a loyal OWC customer since 1988 and had always highly--recommended them to friends (PREVIOUSLY). At the same time, on their so-called MiniStack "Classic" (NOT) model/page, they list the newer Oxford 943 chip set (which they've know for almost at least 3 months now (and have admitted in writing to me) will NOT ever boot a pre-2009 Mac (PPC or Intel) until/unless they come up with compatible firmware. Meanwhile (and to date), that same web page states " It can act as a boot drive as well." Which is a known, proven and admitted lie - which I've reminded them of at every possible occassion since October (and still they persist) . But, they'll be glad to take your money - they took mine after I had explicitly asked before purchasing 2 of these units if it would boot the G4 - and was told yes, but they knew/know it won't (go figure). Furthermore, be forewarned that their Guardian MAXimus is by far the worst POS I've ever seen in 30-years as a Mac addict. There' SO much wrong with it/these, it'd take me a few days to write it all out - as if I would want to ever revisit that sub-aspect of this continuing 'nightmare'

Oct 8, 2015 4:44 PM in response to lonewolfmtn

I've also had difficulty finding an external firewire drive that will boot my Mac-mini G4 1.42GHz running OS X 10.4.11 The hard drive (ATA/100 interface) has been upgraded to a (much faster) OWC Aura Pro 3G (120 GB) ssd.


I have 2 external enclosures that DO boot with FW400 when restart is selected either with the "Startup Disk" pane of System Preferences or by holding the "option"-key on restart. Both contain old PATA drives and are formatted with Apple Partition Scheme, OS X Extended, no OS9 drivers installed: (1) LaCie d2 extreme(FW400/FW800/USB2) with two partitions and (2) OWC MEFW912ALZ (FW400/FW800 RAID) with three partitions. The OS is in the "first" partition on each drive (aka disk1s3) and backups of the OS partition can be created/restored using CCC on a more modern Mac using the faster FW800 ports, while still retaining their Mac-mini functionality.


I have 2 external enclosures that DO NOT boot with FW400. These use SATA disks formatted the same as above, and their partitions do mount on the desktop and a fully functional; they simply won't boot using their firewire ports, either through "Startup Disk" or through a restart holding the "option" key to select the boot drive (they do not appear as a boot volume). (1) OWC MEFW934FWUKS (FW400/USB2) with a 1 TB drive divided into 3 partitions and (2) Newertech Voyager Q (FW400/800/USB3/ESATA) with a 250 GB drive divided into 2 partitions.


Both of the SATA enclosures DO boot the Mac-mini G4 using the USB2 ports, though they are slow (less than 1/2 the speed of FW400) and the process is ugly: See the instructions of loonatic (Aug. 9, 2010) at http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20061017084322177

This requires a restart holding the "command"-"option"-"P"-"R" keys into Open Firmware. The two specific commands I issue for the boot at the open firmware prompt are [the path given in the "devalis" command is likely different for another machine]:

devalias ud /pci@f2000000/usb@1b, 1/disk@1

boot ud:3,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX


Frankly, if I didn't have the two firewire enclosures that do boot FW400 and if USB2 were my only option for a bootable external drive, I would choose instead to do backups from another machine with a FW400/800 port after putting the Mac-mini G4 into "target disk mode".


Has anyone found a bootable FW400 enclosure that holds a SATA drive? Even with the possibility of replacing the PATA hard drives with SSD's, the electronics in my two old (2004/2009) enclosures likely will not last forever!

Need help finding a bootable external hard drive for a G4 Mini

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