Booting Ibook from USB

[bibilit]

I have a Clamshell, used to boot fine under MacOs 9, but last week tried to recover some files and the Ibook refused to boot from the HD.

I can boot from a usb flash drive i made a couple of years ago (MacOS X something) but i want to keep the Clam with a Classic OS.

The Usb install is able to see the hard drive and the MacOs 9 partition, but is refusing to boot from it ( the repair/check procedure says the drive is fine)

In hope it's just a corruption somewhere, because removing and replacing the HD is not an easy task (doable but not easy)

Was thinking trying to image a MacOs 9 disk and use a similar flash drive to have a look at the drive before dismantling the Ibook.

This will work fine ?

 

[treellama]

Yes, to my surprise my clamshell boots Mac OS 9 from a USB drive. I formatted it as HFS+ on another Mac, and either copied the system folder to it or installed Mac OS 9 from an installer. Don’t remember which.

 

[bibilit]

Ok, thanks, i will have a try.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Weird, I've never been able to boot a Clamshell from USB. It's always either not showed up, or given me the "not allowed" sign.

 

[kkritsilas]

Should a 2005 iBook G4 be able to boot from a USB key? I have a new (to me). System Info says the model identifier is Powerbook 6,7, it is a 12" iBook G4 from 2005. It is currently running OSX 10.5.8, and I want to bring it back to OSX 10.4.2. I have gone onto Macintosh Repository, found the CD version of OSX 10.4.2 (4 Disk Set), but cannot seem to burn a bootable set of CDs. The CD version of OSX 10.4.2 comes as .toast files. They will mount as disk images, and I have tried to burn the disk images, but they are not shown as being bootable by Preferences >Start Up Disk. I have tried burning the .toast files directly onto CDS, and they are not shown as bootable, either. I used Stuffit Deluxe to make the .toast files into disk images, and the disks are too large in size (the image is 715MB, the maximum size on a CD is 702.5MB). If a USB key can be used to boot the system, I can try to download the DVD version onto a USB key, and go from there.

 

[mikes-macs]

For USB drives Make sure the drive has Apple Partition Maps.

For the 10.4 disk set you can find the restore dvd for the iBook over at Macintosh Garden or use the 10.4.7 universal DVD. You'll probably update it to 10.4.11 after anyway? For that get the Combo updater

 

[kkritsilas]

For USB drives Make sure the drive has Apple Partition Maps.

For the 10.4 disk set you can find the restore dvd for the iBook over at Macintosh Garden or use the 10.4.7 universal DVD. You'll probably update it to 10.4.11 after anyway? For that get the Combo updater

Sorry, I should have stated that I can only burn CDs on Mac machines, as my only machine that has a burner, this iBook G4, only has a Combo drive (CDRW, but DVD read only). This is why I was trying to download the CD set. I have a Mac Mini, an iMac, and a MacBook AIr, but none of them have optical drives.

From your posting, I take it that I can download either the restore DVD for the iBook, or the 10.4.7 universal DVD and write them out to the USB key?

I reformat the USB keys to MacOS Extended Journaled, so that would give me a proper Apple Partition Map.

 

[mikes-macs]

Okay so you cannot burn any dvd?

To use a USB drive for 10.4.7 Universal Install DVD and the Restore DVD check this out.

 

[kkritsilas]

No, I cannot burn a DVD.

I did what the video said, erased and partitioned the USB key. I went to MacGarden, couldn't find the retail 10.4.7 image. Went to Macinstosh repository, and did find a 10.4.6 image for DVD. It won't let me download it because they want me to pay a fee, and I don't think that is right, so declined. Macintosh Repository will not allow downloads of over 1GB for non-paying members.

 

[mikes-macs]

Mac OSX for PPC (Mac OS 10) - Macintosh Garden

Mac OS X International Edition - (Download #1) DL#1 misnamed as "Mac_OS_X_10.0_Internal_CD.iso (639.93 MB) is an International install set of Mac OS X 10.0, for Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Japanese, and Nederlands. Mac OS X Public Beta System clock must be set before May 2001...

macintoshgarden.org

 

[bibilit]

Was not able to boot from the USB drive newly made for MacOS 9. In the end i used the CD drive instead. I went to a fresh install, recovering first my files with the USB drive.
So working fine under MacOS X, not 9.

 

[kkritsilas]

Mac OSX for PPC (Mac OS 10) - Macintosh Garden

Mac OS X International Edition - (Download #1) DL#1 misnamed as "Mac_OS_X_10.0_Internal_CD.iso (639.93 MB) is an International install set of Mac OS X 10.0, for Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Japanese, and Nederlands. Mac OS X Public Beta System clock must be set before May 2001...

macintoshgarden.org

Thanks for the link; it did not come up when I did a search on Mac Garden. I will see how this works out.

 

[kkritsilas]

I am still having some issues with my iBook G4. I would really like to know if an A1133 iBook G4 can boot from a USB key. I have tried ordering a 10.4.2 IBook G4 Install disk from eBay (didn't boot), I tried to order a 10.4.3 Install disk from another eBay seller, never shipped. I have ordered a 10.4.3 Install disk from a commercial supplier, and it won't boot either. I have come to the conclusion that the Combo Drive is not working properly, so that I cannot boot DVDs (only). It boots CD ROMs fine, which is why the machine is somewhat useless at this point. It boots up just fine, into a monochrome, blurry desktop, which I attribute to the 10.4.0 release not having proper video chip drivers built in for the iBook G4's Radeon GPU. This has also rendered the touchpad useless. I do have a MacBook Air 2013, which I am hoping to use to download a bootable version of 10.4.3 or 10.4.6, and then write out to a USB key, which I can bring over to the iBook G4 and boot, which will get the machine to a basic operational state, and I can go from there.

Is this possible, or is the iBook G$ not capable of booting from a USB key? I realize that I will have to partition the USB key down to below 120GB, or just use a small (by today's standards) USB key (16GB-32GB) to stay below the PPC's drive size limitations.

P.S. I was refunded by eBay for the undelivered install DVD, so no money lost, but I still don't have an operational iBook G4, and I am looking to find a Superdrive for the iBook G4 (but not looking forward to having to take it apart.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

If it boots 10.4.0, just download the combo update and move it over via USB to get 10.4.11 working well on it. I’ve also had zero luck getting anything PPC to boot from USB.

 

[kkritsilas]

As I have stated, with 10.4.0 booted up, the trackpad doesn't work, and neither does a wired Apple USB Mighty Mouse. So transferring the combo update to a USB stick, and bringing it over the iBook, while not a problem, will not allow me to install the Combo update, because I can't use the mouse/trackpad to open the USB stick to start the combo update process.

I did do some investigation today, and it turns out that iBook G4s, and believe it or not G3s (that have Open Firmware) can be booted from a USB stick. References here:

http://genericnerd.blogspot.com/2013/03/breathing-new-life-into-sluggish-ibook.html?m=1

There is a further link within the article that has instructions on how to go even further down into the system if you encounter any issues.

And the mandatory Youtube video is here:

It may even be possible to set up the USB key to use the Power Button plus ALT key combination to do this. From what I have read (sorry, I didn't note the references, but I will try to add them in a later edit):

1. Download the .iso file of whatever distribution you want;
2. On a working Mac, use the Disk Utility to format a USB key. Be sure to use the APM partition scheme, NOT the GUID scheme.
3. Partition the drive with Disk Utility so that the first partition is smaller than 8GB (approximately the size of a DL DVD). I tried at first with a 7.5GB partition, and it failed. I then tried it with a 4.5GB partition, and it worked fine.
4. Then use Disk Utility to Restore the .iso file onto the first partition to get a bootable USB drive.

Warning: I haven't quite done this yet. I ran out of time, my major hangup being that I downloaded OSX 10.4.6 from Mac Garden, unzipped it, but ended with a .dmg file, not a .iso file, and the Restore in Disk Utility works only with .iso files. when I get back to it, I have to figure out how to convert a .dmg file to a .iso file.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Restore works with DMGs, just scan the image for restore in the menu first. Make sure it’s unmounted when you do that, and it can be finicky.

 

[kkritsilas]

More reference data from my journey.

the method of converting a .dmg file to a .iso is here< courtesy of the fine folks at Macintosh Repository:

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/articles/172-how-to-convert-a-dmg-file-to-an-iso-disk-image-

Seems that the problem with .dmg files is that they are compressed, and need to be decompressed before putting them onto media if the media is to be bootable.

There are many other useful articles on Macintosh Repository that may be useful to others.