Use an external firewire drive to start a Pismo and iBook G3

[kkritsilas]

Hi,

I have a number of Powerbook G3 and ibook G3/G4 machines. The Powerbook G3s are a Pismo and a Lombard, and the iBook G3 is a 600Mhz version, and the iBook G4 is a 1.33GHz version.

I am having trouble installing OSX 10.4.3 (later to be upgraded to 10.4.11) on the Pismo and the iBook G3 600MHz. Both hang if I try to start the installer from DVD. Both have DVD reader/CD burner drives. Both can read the DVDs fine, they just can't seem to install from them. My suspicion is that the optical drives on the Pismo and iBook G3 are bad.

What I would like to do is to use the working iBook G4 (which has had 10.4.11 w/Classic mode) to put the installer on an external 1TB hard drive (the drive has USB 2.0/FW400/FW800 interfaces on it). The following are the questions I have:

1. I need to partition the external hard drive so that it has a 128GB or less boot partition, is this correct?
2. If I do that, and use the iBook G4 to copy all of the install DVD contents to the 128GB partition, I should be able to boot from the external hard drive, correct (hold down the OPTION key on power up)? Is there anything special that I would need to do to make the boot partition bootable? I will be using the FW400 interface with the iBook G4 to write the DVD to the external HD, and the FW400 interface to try to boot the Pismo and the iBook G3. I will leave the OS9 drivers enabled on the external hard drive when I partition it.

The Lombard only has a 4.5GB hard drive on it, so its going to stay on System 9.2.2 until I get an SSD for it. Its working fine, boots without any issue at all.

 

[MacUp72]

I never had a problem copying a running 10.4.11 over to a Pismo, I always use Carbon Copy Cloner and the new drive is instantly bootable ( this is done by CCC)
-connect Pismo and PowerBook with FireWire cable, then start Pismo in target disk mode ( keep holding T during startup).
-start PowerBook, format/partition the now external Pismo drive and copy the Tiger partition to it.
(if the iBook also has a FireWire port I guess its the same as with a PowerBook.)

 

[Phipli]

1. I need to partition the external hard drive so that it has a 128GB or less boot partition, is this correct?

Not an issue with FireWire, that was an issue with the IDE interface specifically.

2. If I do that, and use the iBook G4 to copy all of the install DVD contents to the 128GB partition

A drag copy isn't enough for Mac OS X.

Both can read the DVDs fine, they just can't seem to install from them.

There are a lot of non-bootable Mac OS X Installer images online these days, can you boot from your disk in any machine?

 

[Forrest]

The FireWire target disk mode mentioned above should work - no need to buy a drive.

 

[kkritsilas]

Not an issue with FireWire, that was an issue with the IDE interface specifically.

A drag copy isn't enough for Mac OS X.

There are a lot of non-bootable Mac OS X Installer images online these days, can you boot from your disk in any machine?

I used the install DVD to install OSX 10.4.3 onto the iBook G4, where it is happily working away. Since then, updated to 10.4.11.

 

[kkritsilas]

The FireWire target disk mode mentioned above should work - no need to buy a drive.

I would not need to buy a drive, it is currently sitting on my desk.