[naderby]

I have successfully installed a bare System 9 onto the ZIP but even though I choose the icon in the 'Startup Disk' chooser when I restart all I get is a flashing folder and a '?'.
Can you boot from a USB Zip? If you can how? What I am doing wrong?

Thanks

[This message has been edited by naderby (edited 07-15-2000).]

well, i have a rev A, imac, and as far as I know, USB does NOT boot. the macOS looks at the USB bus AFTER it load system software, off of the ATA bus. so untill apple releases a patch or update, USB booting is not possible. if you have a G4 or G3 (B&W), your best bet for booting is Firewire. Good LUck!

[naderby]

Thanks for your reply. I have a iMac RevB.
I am a bit disappointed. What about all these USB Hard Drives about, I was gonna get one. Not now.

Does anyone feel we are going backwards sometime? For years I've been able to boot for external disks.

You can install onto the Zip AND choose it in the 'Startup Disk' control panel. Talk about sloppy, thats not 'tight integration'.

Sorry, just a bit peeved.

[Camali]

Actually you can boot off a zip disk, and usb zip for that matter. I tried it once but it was by accident.

I had a Lomard 333 (I got Pismo500 now) in which I accidently screwed something up. I had a system disk (backup) and had a system on a zip, that inlcuded norton utilities.There was no way that I could get norton to work if I booted off of the CD, since it needs the norton extension, and I couldn't book off the Norton because of usb zip booting.

I gave a try anyway. I put the cd in booted and selected the Zip as the startup drive. I left the system cd in the drive, put the "emergency" zip (system + norton) into the usb zip (I have to mention it was the thin 250 usb) then restarted.

I didn't expect the zip to boot, but it did and I was able to repair my HD-for some strange reason I never make backups ;-(

Again this is with the system cd in the cd drive and the emergency zip disk in the zip drive. I always carry these items with when I use my PB for critical work. When i get home I do back up to my G4. But I needed somefiles right away and I wasn't near home.

Try it, it worked for me.

[naderby]

I did, OS9 bare and only 35MB onto USB Zip100. AND I had the MacOS9 installer disk in the drive at the time.

It didn't work, why?

[This message has been edited by naderby (edited 07-15-2000).]

[BobbyG]

I just compiled a bare-bones OS 9 Install on a 100 MB ZIP (had to do a pick-&-choose-carefully install), upgraded it to 9.0.4 (so it would boot our DV SE iMacs at school, where I'm a net admin), then managed to dump enough to put Norton DD and Speed DIsk on it (so I can defrag/optimize these puppies after the students have clogged their internal drives up doing iMovie projects).

In other words, it's DO-able, folks! The iMac (at least a fully-current DV series) will boot from a ZIP. Just make sure you get it back into the drive before iMac wakes up to boot!

[naderby]

Right I'm off to try again, I never though of 9.0.4 update!

Let you know shortly, thanks.

[naderby]

Thanks everyone for your help but its no use, it only works on iMacs with 'slot-loaders' and G4s etc.

Here's the tech info note I found:
<http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n58430>

You can boot of a USB device on a Slot loading iMac, an ibook, a firewire powerbook or a G4. Older machines don't work.You may need to update the firmware on the machine.
However, The driver on the device has to be compatible with Apple's Mass storage Driver. Zips work if the driver is new enough (use iomega tools to update if you need to). A lot of USB hard drives (like those from VST) do not have compatible drivers yet. Get on their case about a driver update if you want to. LaCie hard drives work fine.

Originally posted by id_est:
You can boot of a USB device on a Slot loading iMac, an ibook, a firewire powerbook or a G4. Older machines don't work.You may need to update the firmware on the machine.
However, The driver on the device has to be compatible with Apple's Mass storage Driver. Zips work if the driver is new enough (use iomega tools to update if you need to). A lot of USB hard drives (like those from VST) do not have compatible drivers yet. Get on their case about a driver update if you want to. LaCie hard drives work fine.

I acually have tried booting my iMac DV off a repair zip disk I created, but I can't get it, nor my new iBook to boot off the usb disk. I normally end up booting off the mac OS 9 disk and then run the utilities off the zip when needed...

I havn't tried it in a while though, I'll play with it again now that I found this thread. Any ideas come to mind on what I may be doing wrong?


------------------

• -Bobby
  <http://www.torgo.org/>

is it possible to boot linux off of a usb zip disk? does this work for all drive that are on usb (hard drives, super disk, zips)
my next queston does anyone know where i can find a case with a usb adapter that i can put an old ide or scsi drive in?

i almost forgot to ask is there a special key combo that has to hold down in order to boot the usb drive