[NavyGreen33@gmail.com]

I bought an external USB hard drive the other day for my Mac mini thinking that I could use it to boot off of (someone told me this was possible), but after several hours, I realized I'd been fooled. I was also going to put a Linux ditribution, does anyone know if this is still possible to do?

I believe the reason I cant OS X off of it is because it resets the USB during boot (or something like that). So does this mean I can't install Linux on it either?

[OptimusG4]

I believe Firewire drives are the only thing that are bootable with a Mac.

[tooki]

Any Mac whose hardware can boot from FireWire also has the capability to boot from USB -- but Mac OS X lacks that ability, oddly.

It should be possible, given a capable bootloader and the correct Open Firmware settings, to make Linux boot from USB.

tooki

P.S. A few USB enclosures, for some reason, don't work right for USB booting. I couldn't tell you which, though.