How do I boot to external FW drive?

M

mindbend

Registered
Shouldn't I be able to boot to an external FW drive? I'm running all latest OS and updates. I thought I remembered being able to do this before. The drive doesn't show up in Startup Disk, nor does it show up when I restart holding down the Option key. I have installed Panther on the FW drive, so it should be recognized I would think.

I want to do this so I can do some test installations on a disk that isn't my main system disk. I suppose I could temporarily mount the drive inside the computer case, but it would be a lot easier to go FW.

Thanks!
 
Good point. It's an IBM, presumably a Deskstar, though it's not branded as such (OEM). 25 GB, probably pushing four years old nwo I think. I've got a whole stack of drives I could test I guess. I'm using a Weibetech case, FW 400.

But I should be able to boot from an external FW drive right?
 
What machine are you trying to boot the FireWire drive on? You have several Macs listed in your signature that will support booting from the FireWire drive, and several that won't boot from a FireWire drive.
 
In this case I tried the iBook and the DP 1 GHZ G4. I have the drive in cable select mode in the FW case. Does this matter for boot purposes? I think I tried switching it to master mode too, but I can't remember now, that was hours ago.

I ended up just installing the drive internally for now, but I'm still curious about booting from FW for future needs.
 
Firstly, not only must the computer's logic board support booting from firewire but the firewire drive itself must be bootable (I don't know if yours is or not). For example, my LaCie (in signature) is not bootable, whereas my iPod is. Check the user documentation that came with your drive or call their support line.

Secondly, try installing just OS 9 on your FireWire disk. I don't know what security measures Panther might have installed that could prevent you booting from another Panther installation locally (as, for example, it supposedly prevents you booting from CD).
 
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