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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Booting From Ext Usb Hdd

onslaught - Jul 29, 2005 - 9:17 pm

Hi
I'm using a 12"PowerBook 867, OS X 10.4.1 with an external harddrive - Omni usb enclosuer with a Samsung 60gig drive (usb 1.1 & 2 compatable) it is bus powered (it has an extra usb plug which extends from the main plug - which I have to use cause the one plug doesn't extract enough power for the drive to run)
Ok, so I backed up my main partition using Super Dooper to the ext drive, but it will not boot. I'm thinking it is cause it is running on USB1.1 (my PB doesn't have USB2) I can read and write files easily enough, but it won't show up in StartUp drives in System Prefs or at start up when pressing "option" key.
I've made bootable backups b4 on FW drives using "Deja Vu", so I'm sure all should of gone correctly. All the files look correct when the drive is mounted, but wont boot.

Any ideas

Thanks

DeltaMac - Jul 29, 2005 - 9:43 pm

Unfortunately, no Mac has the capability of choosing a boot device from USB, even with USB 2.0 Of course, USB 1.1 is way too slow to provide booting, particularly with OS X.
OK for storage, but really slow for files or folders of any size, as you have surely noticed.
If you need to boot from an external drive, FireWire is your choice, which all recent Macs have (except for some iMac G3s)

Hope this helps...
- Dale

onslaught - Jul 31, 2005 - 6:16 pm

Thanks for the reply Dale. At least I was on the right path thinking it was a usb issue.

-Jason