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swopedesign · Jun 3, 2005, 08:11 PM

One of the greatest features of the Macintosh has been its ease to move data between drives, etc. Naturally, I thought it would be a simple matter to install a system on an external firewire drive for my PB G4, boot from it, erase my internal drive, and move data from my backup on the firewire drive. I just heard from Apple support that booting from external drives in OS X (any flavor) is not supported! None. Not firewire. Not USB. If one has more than one internal drive, it will work. But not from an external drive. Ouch! This caught me by surprise. I wonder WHY this decision was made, as it complicates things.

chabig · Jun 3, 2005, 08:22 PM

You've heard wrong. You can absolutely boot from external firewire drives, just not USB drives. You can do exactly what you describe very easily.

Chris

swopedesign · Jun 3, 2005, 10:30 PM

Apple support is the source of the information that OS X doesn't allow booting from external firewire drives. I have tried repeatedly with my PB G4 1 GHz 17" laptop to do this. The laptop doesn't even "see" the external drive. I am pressing option while booting my laptop. The only drives that show are the internal hard drive and startup CD in the drive (if one is present). When I run the PB hardware test that came with the laptop, all hardware passes the tests, but the software indicates that no firewire devices are present, though I've got them connected and turned on, etc. I ran these hardware tests with 3 different drives with 3 different firewire cables with the same results. This is why I called Apple tech support. I expected it to work but does not (in my case). I was very clear explaining my situation to the tech. He did not misunderstand. His response was as I have indicated: booting from an external firewire drive is not supported in OS X (but he said it *may* work on occasion). For me, it hasn't worked at all.

If I have been told wrong, I would be glad to know it, though unhappy that Apple support gave the misinformation and unhappy that I *do* have a problem with my laptop.

Detrius · Jun 4, 2005, 04:05 AM

You have been misinformed. Firewire booting IS supported on every Mac since the Power Mac G4 (AGP). The PCI Power Mac G4 and the B&W G3 are the only Macs with FireWire that don't support booting from FireWire. In fact, USB booting is also supported on Macs that support FireWire booting.

The more important questions at this point: can you boot from your internal drive? Do the hard drives show up on the desktop? If not, do they show up in the Apple System Profile. In what format have the drives been initialized? Are permissions enabled on the drives? Do you do an install, or did you clone the drives? What did you use to format the drives?

If there is nothing of value on one of the drives, use Disk Utility to erase the drive. Don't just erase the volume--erase the drive. This will ensure that the partition table gets rewritten and that any necessary drivers get installed as well. Mac sure that the volume is in HFS+ (HFS Extended) format. Then, reboot from the install CD and run the install on it. The machine should automatically reboot from the drive after you do this. If it does not, select it in the startup disk preference pane and reboot. If it still doesn't boot, try the drive on another Mac. If that works, there is something wrong with your laptop. If it doesn't work... uhhh... there's probably something wrong with your FireWire hard drive.

The bottom line is that this DOES work and is supported in the Mac ROM. If you are having problems, then something is wrong.