Can I boot a Powerbook g4 from external USB drive?

[Wonder_Ape]

Hi everyone. Been reading this forum for years. So I have a old, lovable G4 12" Powerbook that I think has a dead HD. Ok, no issue right? A 2008 iMac I found in the trash runs off an external HD. So why not my old Powerbook G4?

It ran OSX TIger last I had it working. 2 years ago, I think.

What steps do I need to take? How do I install Tiger onto an external HD?

Specs I think, I remember are 867 MHZ, 667(?) Ram. Screen, trackpad, power supply, and keyboard all fine.

Thanks guys.

 

[flecom]

the answer is... maybe

I was able to start my 12" off a USB DVD burner I had, but I was unable to boot off a 32GB Lexar USB 3.0 thumb drive that I imaged 10.5.8 on

the DVD I just held the Option key and selected it... the USB you have to do Option+Open Apple+O+F to get into open firmware and then try to boot from the device "ud" or usb disk (I guess?)

more info here

https://sites.google.com/site/shawnhcorey/howto-boot-apple-powerpcs-from-a-usb-drive-in-open-firmware

 

[Cory5412]

Does it otherwise turn on, and do you have an OS installation CD?

Older PowerBooks could easily boot Mac OS 9 from USB media, but it was slow going, even in OS 9. Officially, these systems will not boot anything off of USB, but unofficially, you can do it if you muck about in OpenFirmware.

But supposedly if you put an OS there, it'll work? That information's old so I'm not 100% sure on it, but it may be worth trying if you have the 10.3/10.4/10.5 install media and a USB hard disk.

If you have a new disk available and you suspect the disk of being dead, the easiest thing will be just to install the new disk.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

If you have a FireWire disk it's much easier. Or, you can get a FW400 cable and connect the iMac and PowerBook, put the PowerBook in Target Disk Mode (hold T when you turn it on until a FireWire logo appears on screen), and then see if you can access the PowerBook drive on your iMac. You can also install OS X that way if the drive does show up and is good.

And that PowerBook can take a 1GB DIMM in the slot, Apple officially claims it can hold a 512MB but that's not the case. 1.128GB is better than 640MB, trust me.

 

[bibilit]

Hi,

You can boot from USB, i have done it several times on an Ibook G3 and G4, as long as the external drive is properly set you won't have any problem.

But if you want to use the external drive as you main system, really i don't know, but will probably be a slow if you achieve it.

 

[tanuki65]

It is hard and unreliabe

 

[butterburger]

Another reference (thanks Sherry Haibara for sharing with me) to deliberately boot USB MSC is 'Booting your iBook G4 from a USB stick' by Ben Collins.

How to tell if your PowerPC-based Mac "officially" supports booting from USB storage: enter Open Firmware shell (hold command + option + o + f), run devalias. Is ud in devalias output ? yes, then it ought to boot from USB : no, then it does not easily boot from USB.

I have yet to try deliberately telling Open Firmware to boot from USB (I am very lazy). I believe, TiBooks boot from USB, then AlBooks removed that functionality (no ud in OF), then later Apple returned that functionality (around time of PowerBook G4 12-inch 1.3 PowerBook6,4).

 

[flecom]

ya my 6,2 was unable to boot from a usb thumb drive via open firmware but was able to boot from a usb dvdrom by just holding the option key, so it's hit and miss

 

[butterburger]

I have yet to try deliberately telling Open Firmware to boot from USB

2015-10-27 Success! After at least eight hours of reading and experimenting, I managed to boot OpenBSD installer from USB Stick. (I am slow.) My Mac: PowerBook6,2 , G4 12-Inch DVI 1GHz , M9007 , A1010 , EMC 1986 . Thank you very much, Sherry Haibara, for making me aware of possibility and pointing me to instructions. My first Stick did not work: Open Firmware node usb1/disk existed, but Mac firmware could not read its contents. Every other PC I ever tried does boot from it, but I guess this Mac firmware does not like this Stick. My USB CD drive did not work: no Open Firmware node (like first Stick, it worked with every other PC). I tried a different Stick, and it worked.



(I do not find a floppy or other disc Smiley. I turned-on Rich Text Editor for nothing.)