prashantsteele
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Q: Use External Drive on ibook G4

Can i use External USB DVD Drive for installation of Mac OS X 10.5 in iBook G4? Will it Detect using Option Key ?

Posted on Nov 11, 2015 11:48 PM

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prashantsteele

Q: Use External Drive on ibook G4

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  • by a brody,

    a brody a brody Nov 14, 2015 10:07 AM in response to prashantsteele
    Level 9 (66,865 points)
    Classic Mac OS
    Nov 14, 2015 10:07 AM in response to prashantsteele

    No.   Only Firewire DVD drives from http://www.macsales.com/ will work.   There might be some other companies with Oxford 922 or Oxford 911 or Initio chipsets that work as well.  Verify with their manufacturer.     It was not until Apple released Intel CPU based Macs that USB based booting was possible with Mac OS X.   

     

    You may find one or two instances where people have succeeded in breaking this rule, but you have to be extremely precise about the make and model of drive you are getting.

     

    Firewire 800 will connect to Firewire 400 with a simple Firewire 800/400 cable.    So even if all you find is a Firewire 800 based drive, you can work with that.

  • by a brody,

    a brody a brody Nov 14, 2015 10:09 AM in response to prashantsteele
    Level 9 (66,865 points)
    Classic Mac OS
    Nov 14, 2015 10:09 AM in response to prashantsteele

    Note also the the Leopard installer disc must look like:

     

    leopard.jpg

    And not say Update, Dropin, or OEM on it.

  • by a brody,

    a brody a brody Nov 14, 2015 10:10 AM in response to prashantsteele
    Level 9 (66,865 points)
    Classic Mac OS
    Nov 14, 2015 10:10 AM in response to prashantsteele

    Lastly Leopard gets rid of Classic.   So make sure if you have any Mac OS 9 based applications, you clone your 10.4.11 or earlier drive to an external hard drive or keep a second partition to boot 10.4.11 or earlier to use Classic.