9.1 won't boot from FireWire drive on an iMac g3 and iBook g3.

hi, I have a very old powermac 6500/250, I just wiped it and installed mac os 9.1 it boots fine in the powermac, but when in the FireWire/USB encloser I get the floppy with a ? Mark.
the encloser boots with mac os x. Is mac os 9 not bootable with FireWire?

Sorry, if it is not retail, or isn't the installer disc that shipped with the Mac, or an up to date program, then it is illegal. We can't help you there. Please read the terms of use on the right. Get a legal licensed copy of Mac OS 9 if you want to install 9.
System specific disks can only install on the Mac models they shipped with.
Retail disks can only install on Mac models older than them.
Update disks can only install on the immediately previous version, on Macs made available new just upon the release of that operating system.

Similar Messages

Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

I have an older 400 MHz G4 running 10.3.9 and 10.1.5 which will not boot from a firewire system volume. Two system volumes (10.4) on the external drive appear as start up disk choices in the system preferences, but when selected the system displays a folder w/? upon restart and then the system boots from an OS 9 partition on one of the machines internal drives. This happens when the system is restarted from either of the computers boot partitions (10.3.9, 10.1.5). Don't know if this is a software or a hardware problem. Holding down the option key upon restart, even without the external OS 10.4 drive, produces same behavior. System info identifies the machine as a G3 but processor type as G4. It is one of the graphite colored Power Macs.
Any insights appreciated.

The G4 PCI graphics PowerMac can not boot off a Firewire hard drive. Check which G4 model you have here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58418
The G4 AGP and the iMac DV were the first Macs to be able to boot off Firewire.
It is interesting your Mac identifies itself as a G3. Now it is true that the early G4s were basically a G3 with a slightly modified logicboard and front and side panels (as well as the omission of the ADB port). But there are G4s inserted in some old Blue and White G3s by adventurous upgraders. The Blue and White G3 pictured here can't boot off Firewire either:
That Mac also can't boot off Firewire.

Re: Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

I am having the same problem with one I just received today. I have the AGP one but it will not but off of the firewire drive. Any insights on this?

Hi, stupidipodnano -
Okay -
The firewire drive shows on the desktop, so there is nothing wrong with the Mac's hardware or the hardware for the drive.
The drive's size, and the OS on it, are not incompatible (OS 9 can not boot from volumes larger that 200GB, but neither of those conditions pertain here).
That leaves the issue of the installation of the OS.
• If the OS (OSX 10.4.x) was installed while the drive was connected to a different model Mac, it is probably a model-specific install of the OS, and thus not capable of booting a different model.
• If the OSX Install CD used is one that came with a different model, and not a retail one, that, too, would result in a non-bootable OS. The disks that come with a Mac are model-specific to that particular model and its hardware.
• If the OS was copied from another source, rather than actually installed using the installer program, that, too, usually results in a non-bootable installation.
What format is the firewire drive? You can determine that by doing a Get Info on the icon of the mounted drive.
Did you reformat (initialize) the drive after gettting it? ...or did you go ahead and use it 'as-is' as soon as you got it? If you did not re-initialize it, it would be a good idea to do so. Note that this will erase everything on the drive.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

Booting from FireWire Drive

I have a LaCie 160MB (F A Porsche style) external firewire drive.
I have been able to create a bootable clone of my iBook HD using Disk Utility and the Restore function.
I have been able to create a bootable partition by installing the System Software onto it.
But I have not had success using SilverKeeper or SuperDuper! Does anybody know why? I would really like to use the features of one (or another if available) of these applications.
Thanks.
-Ted

Below is LaCie's Tech Support Reply. What is interesting is that they suggest Carbon Copy Cloner (instead of Silverkeeper). Also interesting is that it worked. I hope this helps some of you.
Ted
Hi Ted--
Thanks for contacting LaCie Technical Support. All of our firewire
drives can be used as boot volumes. Due to differences in operating
systems and Macs, we are unable to provide support for booting from
firewire drives other than the following information:
1. Make sure the Mac is bootable via firewire. All Macs with built-in
firewire can be booted from an external drive except:
-Blue and White G3s
-PCI-Graphics G4s. This can be determined by looking in the Apple
System Profiler. The PCI Graphics G4s use the same motherboard as the
B&W, except with a G4 processor shoehorned in.
2. The drive must be connected to a native port. It will not work if
the drive is connected to an add-on card.
3. The Mac must have the latest firmware installed. The proper updater
can be found and downloaded from here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
Download and read the instructions carefully. It is possible to kill a
Mac if the update is interrupted. Then, perform the update. If the
firmware is already current, the updater will report this.
4. Format the drive fresh using either Apple's Disk Utility in OS X or
Silverlining in OS 9. Use the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format only.
(Journaling may be enabled on OS 10.3.)
5. If making an OS 9 boot drive, you can just copy the System Folder
over to the root of the boot volume. To be bootable, the System Folder
must be blessed, i.e. has a happy Mac face on it. If it does not, you
can try to force it to bless by removing the Finder from the folder and
moving it to the root. Then, move the Finder back. The folder should
now be blessed. If not, then there is probably an issue with the System
Folder.
6. In making an OS X boot drive, the ONLY two recommended solutions
are:
--install from the OS X install disk, preferably the one which came with
the Mac. You will not be able to make a successful boot drive using an
older disk set. A newer disk set should also be fine.
--use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to perform a copy of an
existing OS X install. It is not possible to do this manually. There
are issues with permissions, hidden files, and files in use that cannot
be manually overridden. If you are using a disk image, you will still
need to use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to copy the files out
from the image to the root of the new boot volume. A simple drag and
drop will not include the necessary hidden files, such as the boot
loader and the kernel.
If the volume does not appear as a Start Up Disk, try booting with the
Option key held down and see if the drive shows in the boot drive
selection screen.
If the volume does not show, or the kernel panics on boot, chances are
the OS install was not performed properly.
In general, CD/DVD drives are not bootable via firewire, but will work
under certain circumstances, usually booting from OS X to OS X. They
should not be relied upon as such. To boot from one, hold down the
Option key while booting. If the boot CD shows on the screen, you may
select it and continue the boot.

IMac won't boot from Firewire?

Hey gang-
I wanted to post this to save anyone else pulling out their hair if they have a Mac that won't boot from a Western Digital (WD) external Firewire drive. I recently purchased a Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive.
I bought this drive intending to partition it into two 1TB partitions- one for a bootable backup and one for a Time Machine backup. I do my bootable backups with the application SuperDuper, which is outstanding for this purpose. I have used it to create bootable backups on 3 different Maxtor external Firewire drives, and they have all flawlessly booted all my Macs. I expected no different from this new Western Digital (WD) 2TB drive.
Unfortunately, the WD would not boot 2 out of my 3 Macs when connected via Firewire. It would NOT boot an Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) or an Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does boot our Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition). Strangely, the WD booted all 3 Macs when connected via USB, though needless to say very slowly in all cases. If you need additional technical information, read on.
Technical Info: The following tests were done with the WD connected via Firewire. The WD is correctly formatted for booting Intel Macs with GPT GUID formatting. Note that the WD appears as a bootable drive in System Preferences->Startup Disk on all 3 of my Macs. But when attempting to boot via Firewire, I get only a grey screen on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). The Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition) boots normally. When booting with the Option Key held down, Startup Manager does NOT see the WD as a bootable drive on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does appear as a bootable drive on the Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition).
When connected via USB, the WD boots all three of my Macs, but very slowly compared to the internal drive.
It's probably worth noting that the Late-2007 MacBook and the Mid-2007 iMac all share the then-new Santa Rosa architecture. So I'm guessing that they may share the same Firewire chipset. And for whatever reason, that chipset does not play nice with the WD chipset.
So, bottom line is that if you need a Firewire bootable backup, be sure to test the drive right away so that you don't think you have a bootable backup when in fact you don't.
On the good side, the drive is amazingly quiet. At this point, I need to decide whether to keep the drive, knowing that I have only USB as a bootable option on 2 out my 3 Macs, or return it. But in any case, wanted to pass this on to anyone else having problems booting from an external Firewire drive.

baltwo wrote:
FWIW, many WD HDs won't boot Macs and booting Macs isn't supported. Details at their site. That's the main reason I never recommend their crappy HDs.
Actually I'm very familiar with that list- spent a lot of time looking at this past week!
Ironically, the majority of that page is a list of drives which they claim WILL boot Macs. In fact, the list is entitled "List of Mac-bootable WD external drives..."
And yep, mine is on there...on the list that reads "The following external hard drives should be bootable on Intel-based Mac computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b)" is "MyBook Studio" as well as my drive model number.
But that's all beside the point. Like you, I couldn't recommend their drives at this point. At least make sure if you buy one that the vendor has a good return policy.
Dave

MacBook won't boot off Firewire drives

i just got a MacBook and couldn't be more pleased but i just tried to use the Firewire drive to boot from but it doesn't show up as option for restart. the drives( i tried two) are loaded with 10.4.10 and show up on the desktop and work fine but it's odd the Mac won't boot from them. had no issue connecting to my Pismo. both show up as start up discs. i looked in the forums but didn't see this issue brought up. a little help please.

Paul Roese1 wrote:
Does this mean i have to (can i?) install Tiger from my MB's discs on to a connected firewire drive and it can then be used as a start up drive for the unit? Thanks much.
Yup. Alternatively, you can 'clone' the MB's internal hd to the external firewire hd. Two of the most widely used methods of achieving this are:
1. Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
2. SuperDuper! - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Kryten

XServe won't boot from any drive, but recognizes them in OS X Installer

I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
At first I thought it was the drive, so I installed OS X Server on another drive. Still wouldn't boot to that drive, so I booted from the DVD and repaired the disks in Disk Utility. Still nothing. I booted to DVD again and when I went to Startup Disk, it actually did show my disks with their respective OS X Server installs.
When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

MacBook Pro 8,1 beeps 3 times on boot from FireWire drive: why?

Hi, all,
about the brand spanking new 13" I bought, I immediately wanted to boot the FireWire drive so I could install Snow Leopard. Install disk image was copied to a dedicated partition on the FW drive to speed up install process.
Holding the [alt] key during startup leads to 3 beeps that are indefinitely repeated. I also tried to select the relevant partition in the Control Panel Startup Disk. Same result
Why doesn't it want to start from this image? How can I solve this issue?

In fact, it is a late 2011, not an early 2011 "New Old Stock", so you're correct it shipped with Lion. But, aside from its weird ergonomics (Dynamically-attributed spaces and different gestures from the previous OS X versions), what turned me off was the official complete impossibility to get a physical copy of Lion at a reasonable price, when it is installed. I also wanted the mounted drives to appear at the top left corner in Finder windows, as they did in pre-Lion OS X, instead of the bottom left. I wanted to put back the Firefox profiles in their place... Turns out the Library folder isn't visible in Lion.
Simply put, anything I wanted to do to start on the good foot wasn't possible on Lion.
I went to the Genius Bar, and indeed their own external rescue drive also made the Mac beep. I told them about the Snow Leopard tethered downgrade. They were aware of the method, but there was no Snow Leopard Mac remaining in-store. And with the install DVD causing kernel panics, there was no way to at least try a dual-boot installation (Snow Leopard for mission-critical apps, Lion for playing around with).
To another Apple-approved place I went. The young tech here was willing to perform the downgrade (since it would have cost me $75/hr), and had both Snow Leopard and Lion machines. But I argued that I wouldn't be willing to pay twice since I intend to switch to SSD in a short while. He then tested when booted from a clone, and Snow Leo half-installed on the internal drive (needs one reboot during installation), but it ended up in kernel panic. Same went when he tried the physical Snow Leopard disk after formatting the internal drive, hypothesizing something detected on it may prevent Snow Leopard installer to boot. It immediately went into a kernel panic.
Both techs were actually surprised that this signal came out, instead of a message stating (official) incompatibility, as well as kernel panics.
My hypothesis is there's something in the Snow Leopard installer that accesses the hardware at a lower level during installation, but not during normal execution or Target Mode, hence causing kernel panics in the former.
What else can be tried, or what else didn't go through my mind?

IMac G5 won't boot from CD drive, Please Help

My iMac G5 won't boot from the CD drive. There is no operating system on the hard drive so I want to install a fresh copy of Leopard. I have tried a couple different methods, but I keep getting the same end result. The first method I tried was booting from the CD drive by holding the C key during start up. The Leopard disc was automatically ejected after about 20-30 seconds. The second method I tried was booting the iMac to the "question mark file screen," which is when I inserted the Leopard disc. Usually on other Mac computers, this is when the computer will show the Apple logo and prompt you with the installation process. Not this iMac, it just ejects the disc shortly after I insert it. I'm not sure if it's the CD drive that is having the issue, the hard drive, or something else.
If you have any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Chris

Where did you get the CD from?
If it is from another Mac, it is probably specific to the hardware in that Mac and is not capable of boot your iMac.
Allan

MS-6728 won't boot from DVD drive?

I have a MS-6728 motherboard with bios v2.5 that won't boot from a bootable DVD disk. Here's what I've tried so far:
- Made sure the DVD drive was the first one in the BIOS boot device list.
- Tried two different DVD drives. One plain DVD drive. The other was a DVD dual layer writer. Both were PATA.
- Booted the DVD from three other machines to confirm it's not the DVD disk. It worked fine on all of them.
- Put the DVD drive from one of the machines that booted it correctly into the MS-6728 machine. That didn't fix the problem.
- Removed all drives except the PATA DVD drive and one SATA hard drive. No luck.
- Booted the MS-6728 machine from a bootable CD. That worked it was a Windows XP Pro install CD.
The DVD is a Debian install DVD BTW. Also I tried it each time by doing the F11 (select boot device) and just letting the BIOS auto detect everything. Each time I see a quick flash of "boot record not found" but I know the DVD is bootable since it worked with three other machines. The DVD was made from a ISO image downloaded from the net. I have booted the machine several times before from CDs.
I'm wondering if the BIOS only supports bootable CDs and not bootable DVDs?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

How many IDE controllers does you board have? If it has more than 2, make sure that the DVD drive is connected to Intel controller and not Promise Controller.

K9A2 Platinum-Won't boot from optical drives

My problem is that I can't get my computer to boot from either optical drive.Both drives work; I can read and write from either drive in windows xp. In the boot order menu neither drive is shown as a boot from device.The boot sequence menu shows all hdd and usb devices but no optical drives.Both drives are recognized in the bios.I wanted to dual boot vista x64 but can't because it won't boot from drive.Any ideas?
QuadCore AMD Phenom Black Edition 9850, 2500 MHz (12.5 x 200) MSI K9A2 Platinum (MS-7376) OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR10662G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM ATI Radeon X1800 GTO (256 MB) WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 (232 GB, IDE)WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B0 (465 GB, IDE) Microsoft Windows xp SP 3 Cooler Master 650W+3.3V@28A,+5V@30A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,[email protected], [email protected]

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S10-2 Won't boot from hard drive

I have an S10-2 2957 that won't boot from the internal hard drive. The one key function doesn’t work either. After the splash comes up and the BIOS runs all that is displayed is a flashing cursor. If I boot from an external source (USB CD) I can see the hard drive and all files are intact. I have tried removing the battery and power supply, holding the power key for 30 seconds before powering the unit back up to no avail. I’m thinking that either the boot sector is corrupt or the first partition is not active. Any ideas?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

press f8 to load when you see lenovo logo at start-up, and select safe mode. post back the results.

Won't boot from USB Drive

I am trying to replace my internal drive. I got a WD Scorpio from OWC and formatted and installed OS 10.6. But when I boot from the drive I get the panic screen.
The drive otherwise behaves normally. I can see the files, etc.
Also, strangely, the drive is only recognizable as bootable from the right USB port. That doesn't really make any sense to me.
Please help! The OWC folks have sent me multiple drives and have really tried to get this working, but I have the same result each time. Anyone out there have a solution?
Thanks.

Try prepping the drive this way:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Powerbook won't boot from hard drive or restore disk

I've looked through some of the older posts here and none of them exactly matches my problem, and I've tried just about any possible solution I can think of.
I recently noticed that my PowerBook was acting a bit strange. It was making more fan noises than usual, and sometimes the computer would make the very last noise it makes as it shuts down (which is the hard drive coming to rest, I suppose?), though the computer would still be running. Then, yesterday the computer froze and I hit command-control-power, and when the computer restarted it gave me a folder icon blinking between a question mark and the Mac logo.
I tried restarting again, but I had no luck. Now when I try to start up I get the start-up chime, then I get one of three things:
1) If I restart it without a CD in the drive, I get the blinking folder.
2) If I restart it with the Software Restore and Install DVD in (but without holding down the C key), it gets to the Apple logo and shows the spinning pinwheel or whatever you want to call it, then freezes and some nasty horizontal bars pop across the screen.
3) If I restart it with the Restore & Install DVD in and I hold down the C key, it gives me the Apple logo, then the "Your computer has encountered a problem and needs to be restarted" box pops up.
I tried zapping the PRAM--no luck. I tried Open Firmware; the screen pops up, then I type in "mac-boot" and I get the same thing as in #2 above.
I used the Hardware Test CD; it told me that there was a Mass Storage error with the error code 2STF/1/4. That doesn't sound too pleasant.
I'm not sure what caused it; perhaps it was a heat thing, but I moved it too a different surface. All the hardware is original except for the Airport card, which has worked fine since Christmas. The only recent software changes I've made were updating to the newest versions of iTunes and Firefox. It doesn't seem like a hard drive problem, since the boot CD won't work.
Am I doomed to sending Apple a couple hundred bucks to fix this? The laptop is right at three years old, so even if I'd had AppleCare it would be expiring right about now. Or is it time to buy one of those MacBooks? Or just buy a couple PC's and use each one till it breaks, then throw it out?
Thanks,
Kevin

I finally got to another Mac. I installed Mac OS X onto my Firewire drive, then hooked up the drive to my Powerbook and used the Startup Manager. The drive showed up on Startup Manager and I chose to boot from it. When I did, the startup process continued briefly, then froze just like it does when I try to boot from the CD.
I know my Powerbook's hard drive is shot, and to be honest, I'm fine with that--there isn't any critical, essential data on there. I tried starting the Powerbook up in Target Disk mode, but that doesn't work either--I hear the chime, press T, but the screen stays black.
Now my question is: can I rip the hard drive out? Or do I have not only a bad hard drive, but also something else gone wrong? I'm not opposed to buying a new internal hard drive and installing it myself if that will fix the problem; what I don't want to do is spend a few hundred bucks to take it to someone who's only going to tell me that my omputer is now a paperweight.
Also, my Powerbook isn't one of the ones with a recalled battery. The computer can get pretty hot, even when sitting on a desk, but I just figured that was normal.
Thanks,
Kevin

9.1 won't boot from FireWire drive on an iMac g3 and iBook g3.

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