[lsobel]

I have a 466 MHz G4 Power Mac with the following features: OS 9.1; 30GB Hard Drive; 2 USB Ports [both of which are being used]; 2 FireWire Ports [both available]; a SCSI port; G-dock2 hub [with 2 available USB ports]; 250 MB Internal USB Zip Drive; CD-RW; Apple Extended II Keyboard; Norton SystemWorks.
I would like to have an alternate and CONVENIENT way of booting-up the G4, especially for the case in which I am not able to directly boot the G4, something I shudder to even mention. I have been considering getting an external hard drive, primarily for booting-up purposes, although such a drive obviously would be useful for backing-up purposes. Please recommend a suitable BOOTABLE external hard drive, and the means of connection: USB, FireWire or SCSI. Any other booting-up suggestions and comments would be welcome.

[I Bent My Wookiee]

As far as I know any firewire drive is bootable.

The LaCie's are high quality and work great.

[legionare]

Wrong! I believe an external enclosure with Oxford 911 chipset and a Mac with built-in Firewire ports are a sure combination to get bootability. Otherwise, a big ?

The Firewire ports on the 466Mhz aren't added via a PCI card, are they?

[lsobel]

Thanks to "I Bent my Wooklee" & "Legionare: for your prompt responses.
Legionare, I didn't add any PCI cards for the FireWire Ports to my G4. These ports were already on the G4 when I received it. Also, Apple Profiler does not indicate any FireWire PCI cards. Thanks for mentioning the Oxford 911 chipset, which I was not aware of.

[zigzag]

Isobel, I don't have one but I've been researching the same thing. You can either buy a ready-made external FW drive (enclosure w/ drive already installed), or you can buy an enclosure and install the drive of your choice. Either way, you want to make sure you get the Oxford 911 chip, which provides better transfer speeds. Virtually all of the FW drives/enclosures being sold now have the 911 chip.

Western Digital, Maxtor, LaCie and others make good ready-made FW drives. However, unless you find one of the aforementioned on sale, you can usually save some $$ and have more flexibility by buying an enclosure and installing the drive of your choice. A good place to learn about these is www.barefeats.com

[TomHMeredith]

Have you considered an iPod?

These are bootable from, and even if you only have the 5gig one, you have plenty of space left for music.

Of course, you could get much more disk space for the same amount of money, but you loose the music player.

Just an option to consider.

Tom.

[bradoesch]

I have a Maxtor 40 GB FireWire and it's bootable. I would assume that new Maxtors are bootable as well (?).

[lsobel]

Thanks to zigzag, TomHMeredith and bradoesch for your thoughts.
To: Zigag: My strong preference is buy a ready-made external FW drive. Thanks for recommending the Oxford 911 chipset, as did legionare. Prompted by the above posts by legionare and "I Bent My Wookies", I contacted LaCie and was told that all their FireWire drives currently use Oxford 911 chipsets.
To TomHMeredith: It is an interesting option to consider an iPod, which I don't have.
To bradoesch: Thanks for mentioning the Maxtor's bootable 40 GB FireWire. I sent an e-mail to Maxtor inquiring if they have external hard drives with the Oxford 911 chipset. No response from them yet.

[scottiB]

OS X 10.2 can't be installed via the normal methods (i.e., mount iPod, select it in the installer, etc.). You can use Carbon Copy Cloner to do it. The instructions can be found in "Mac 911" section of March 2003's Macworld (oops..as I just saw that you aren't using X--please file for future reference).

Regarding FW drives, I have two 80GB Maxtors (one 5400 rpm-purchased 2/2001; one 7200 rpm-purchased 2/2002), and they've worked flawlessly. I don't recommend them over any other brand; they just worked the best for my needs at the time (meaning my supplier could FedEx them to me overnight). I have booted from them when needed and have DiskWarrior installed when disk flub-ups occur (I highly, highly suggest that you use DiskWarrior over Norton's Disk Utilities. DW has repaired what Norton couldn't, and DW's support staff is excellent).

LaCie makes quality stuff, and software (SilverKeeper) is included for automated back-up scheduling. That's what I'd buy if I were in the market and didn't want to roll my own.

Good luck.

[zigzag]

Originally posted by lsobel:
I sent an e-mail to Maxtor inquiring if they have external hard drives with the Oxford 911 chipset. No response from them yet.

You can rest assured that Maxtor and WD use the 911 chip or its equivalent (as indicated on barefeats.com, there are alternative designs that work just as well or better). My only concern would be if you were buying an older unit on eBay or something.

[lsobel]

To zigzag: Still haven't heard from Maxtor or WD, so thanks to you for answering the Oxford 911 question.
To scottiB: Thanks for suggesting using DiskWarrior instead of Norton's Disk Utilities. Do you or anyone know if it is possible to conveniently use DiskWarrior for booting-up my G4, in which case I probably would forgo pursing getting an external hard drive, as the primary reason for doing so was for the drive's bootability capability, and really not for its storage capabilities.

[scottiB]

The current DiskWarrior will boot into OS 9, and you can run the diagnostic and repair utilities from the booted CD. It will be slower than if it were installed on a hard drive, but I've done it on a few occasions.

There are, though, some circumstances that DW cannot repair--complete drive mechanical failure, for instance. Unless you adhere to very strict back-up ethic, I would really suggest adding a second drive back-up. It need not be FireWire; your G4 can accept a second drive stacked above its current one. Your G4 came with instructions to add one, and it's not difficult--assembling a new vacuum cleaner is more difficult, believe me.

[AsahiToro]

Originally posted by scottiB:
The current DiskWarrior will boot into OS 9, and you can run the diagnostic and repair utilities from the booted CD. It will be slower than if it were installed on a hard drive, but I've done it on a few occasions.

There are, though, some circumstances that DW cannot repair--complete drive mechanical failure, for instance. Unless you adhere to very strict back-up ethic, I would really suggest adding a second drive back-up. It need not be FireWire; your G4 can accept a second drive stacked above its current one. Your G4 came with instructions to add one, and it's not difficult--assembling a new vacuum cleaner is more difficult, believe me.

Man, I agree with you on assembling a vacuum cleaner . On the subject of installing a second hard drive, are there any performance drawbacks from doing so? For example, I have a Western Digital 80 GB(8 MB cache) 7200rpm drive that's a very good performer. If I add an older slower drive(maybe ATA 66 or 5400 rpm, etc.) to the same ATA bus, will this slow down my WD drive(from being on the same bus)? I thought I read somewhere many moons ago that this might happen in some situations. I have a Digital Audio G4 733 (ATA/66 bus) and I realize we never really saturate the ATA/66 but could an ATA/66 drive slow down an ATA/100-133 drive if it's on the same bus? Thanks for any input.

[scottiB]

Asahi,

I recall that, too, but, after a quick Google search, I couldn't find verification. If you have a second drive lying about and not being used, I'd install it and see what you think.

[AsahiToro]

Originally posted by scottiB:
Asahi,

I recall that, too, but, after a quick Google search, I couldn't find verification. If you have a second drive lying about and not being used, I'd install it and see what you think.

I'll give it a shot and see if that's the case via Macbench. Anyone else know about this subject?