External boot for 2005 iMac PPC

I want to boot a 2004 17" PPC iMac from an external drive. The external drive is configured to v10.4.11.
Computer recognizes the external drive & I can alter Preferences to point to the external drive when I've booted from the internal drive.
But then it boots (after quite a wait with just a blank grey screen) from the internal drive, ignoring the external drive.
What am I missing?

Not all firewire disk enclosures support booting. It depends on the chipset. It's kind of a hit or miss thing. You need to buy a firewire enclosure that claims to support mac booting.
It would be helpful to know the make & model number of the harddrive enclosure. You may want to report what your system profiler says about the external hd. Details on what Disk Utility says about how the drive is formated.
Did you try a different firewire port? ( a low possiblity. )
Here is my standard write up on external hds.
You need an external Firewire drive to boot a PowerPC Mac computer.
I recommend you do a google search on any external harddrive you are looking at.
I bought a low cost external drive enclosure. When I started having trouble with it, I did a google search and found a lot of complaints about the drive enclosure. I ended up buying a new drive enclosure. On my second go around, I decided to buy a drive enclosure with a good history of working with Macs. The chip set seems to be the key ingredient. The Oxford line of chips seems to be good. I got the Oxford 911.
Has everything interface:
FireWire 800/400 + USB2, + eSATA 'Quad Interface'
save a little money interface:
FireWire 400 + USB 2.0
This web page lists both external harddrive types. You may need to scroll to the right to see both.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
The latest the hard drive enclosures support the newer serial ata drives. The drive and closure that I list supports only older parallel ata.
Here is an external hd enclosure.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW91UAL1K/
Here is what one contributor recommended:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10452917#10452917
Folks in these Mac forums recommend LaCie, OWC or G-Tech.
Here is a list of recommended drives:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5564509#5564509
Robert

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I want to use my Macbook Air 2011 as an external disk for my iMac 2011. I connected the two with a Thunderbolt cable and when starting the MacBook Air I pressed "T" and it worked except with Office documents. Can anybody help?

I want to use my MacBook Air as an external disk to my iMac. I talked to Apple care and we solved it by connecting a Thunderbolt cable between the two computers. I then turn on the MacBook Air while pressing the "T" and it works. I can sit and work on my iMac and grab/change/save the files that are in my MacBook Air EXCEPT for the Microsoft Office files. I called Microsoft and they can't solve it. They say it might be a problem with the Thunderbolt cable. Has anybody have this problem?
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Hi,
I just found out, that the new iMacs can be used as external displays for MacBooks with MiniDP.
Now I'm considering to buy an 27" iMac, but I've one question:
As my MacBook Air is much slower than an iMac, I was wondering if I could get my MBA (or any ohter MB) in Target Display Mode, with the Command/F2 key combination?
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Get something like this for your iMac:
https://store.griffintechnology.com/imic
Most Apple stores sell similar.

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I have had my trusty iMac (the snowball one) for 6+ years now and have loved it dearly. It has an 80gig hard drive that is about three quarters full. I have other things stored on an external hard drive, and have been using a 200gig external for Time Machine.
Anyway, I am about to splurge on a new iMac. Going for the 21.5 inch one, but putting 2T hd in it and as much ram as possible.
My question is: what will time machine need for back up? For the past few years I have been using a 200gig external for Time Machine (I also have a 500g one for extra photos and music). It will be quite a while before I have even 100 gigs of stuff to back up with Time Machine. So can I continue to use the 200 gig external for TM? Should I use the 500gig instead? Or am I going to have to buy a new external to equal the 2T?
For what it is worth, I plan to keep my snowball iMac and use it to store some documents or photos that I do not need to access often?
Many thanks in advance.
Jane

Hi Jane,
Pondini has made excellent FAQs for Time Machine to be found here http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html
Quote from it:
+"A general "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2 to 3 times as much space as the data it's backing-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD).+
+But this varies greatly, depending on how you use your Mac. If you frequently add/update lots of large files, then even 3 times may not be enough. If you're a light user, 1.5 times might do. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to predict, so if in doubt, get a bigger one!"+
Endquote.
So, it seems to me that using your 500GB external HD for Time Machine should be sufficient for your useage.
Hope it helps
Stefan
Message was edited by: Fortuny

What is the best external harddrive for my iMac (Intel)

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Before you do this, consider backing up requires that you keep at least two copies of your data at all times. I would consider increasing the capacity of your internal before adding an external hard drive to add to capacity. See my backup and disk full FAQs*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
If after reading these you still desire to map to an external drive, you can, and I would recommend drives by http://www.macsales.com/
They do ship to England.
But remember that means double backing up at separate times for the external drive, and that the external drive may not always be able to daisy chain with a backup drive on the same bus. That with an iMac frequently might mean having one USB, and one Firewire drive, or using a Time Capsule to backup both internal and external to.

Best external speakers for my iMac

I am looking at the Bose Companion 3 and Companion 5 speakers for my iMac. If I understand correctly, the difference is the 5 does surround sound and is great for movies. I want great speakers for audio.

Hi Bryan
I think it depends on where your iMac is setup!
If your iMac is setup in your den or family room and you allready have a nice stereo system just pickup a mini headphone to RCA adapter and RCA cables and hook it up. If you do not have a decent stereo then yes the Bose or an upper end 5.1 system is the way to go.
[Mini Stereo To RCA|http://www.nextag.com/Cables-to-Go-Mini-87727346/prices-html?nxtg=10c4e0a24 051e-A3F9D6FEEE79567F]
If your iMac is setup in a small office, any of the 2.1 systems would sound real nice for a-lot less cash. I have a Creative Inspire 2.1 system in my office, the satellite speakers are in the corners of the room (instead of blaring in my face) and the Sub under my desk. The setup sounds great, it has good R & L channel separation and the sub rumbles/thumps the floor real nice.
[Creative Inspire|http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=27&p roduct=15773]
[Other 2.1 systems|http://www.nextag.com/2.1-speaker/search-html]
[And 5.1 systems|http://www.nextag.com/5.1-speaker-systems/search-html]
Hey nothing against the Bose they are great, I might have a set myself if money grew on trees!
Dennis

Keyboard for 2005 iMac

My grandson has a hand-me-down iMac with the pre-aluminum keyboard. The one I could type with quickly without errors. He says it is broken so I want to get him a replacement. If I remember correctly, there is at least one function in booting up which can't be done with his computer with a more modern keyboard. I think his iMac is from 2005. We prefer (but don't require) a corded keyboard, and we prefer not paying much. We gave him my wife's computer when it couldn't upgrade to the latest OSX.
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I have an original iMac that has tons of files on it I would like to save. I created a LOT of materials when I was teaching and they are all on the old iMac. It also has two games I bought on floppy discs that I would really like to keep. I tried to load files on a Passport, but the iMac won't recognize it. I have two other old iMacs (not quite originals) as well, but they won't take the Passport either. They will both take a flash drive. I can take word processing files (I can't even remember the application at the moment) off the older one and convert them to Apple Works on the other one, then take the converted files to our iMac 9.1 and convert them to Pages. Then I put them on the Passport. It is a pain, but at least it works. I can also save the documents as pdfs and put them directly on the newer iMac and copy and paste in a Pages document.
The original iMac does not lend itself to any of this. What is the best way to transfer files? It seems like a very long time ago I tried to connect it to my newer iMac with an Ethernet cable but it wouldn't accept the cable. If I am remembering correctly I called Apple Support and they said it lacked something that would allow it to connect. I do not remember if I have tried a flash drive on it or not. I believe I did and it would not recognize it.
Also, does anyone know how I can manage to save a copy of the games? Since I bought them on floppies I can't reinstall them if something happens, but I believe it is within the law to make a backup copy. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. I do have an external floppy reader for the original iMac, but it only works on user created floppies, not commercial ones. If I can manage to hook up to a flash drive or another computer and I simply save the game application, will that be enough? Or is it not possible to know until I try? Will saving the application get all the necessary files?
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I believe on the "newer" two we are running OS 9, at least on one of them. I do not recall the OS on the original, but it is whatever it came with. OS 8, perhaps? It has been probably half a year since we fired it up.
I appreciate any advice and help anyone can give me. We really like these old iMacs, which is why we still have three of them. If we can save the files off the original iMac, we would still keep it so we could play our two old games from time to time. :-) I would part with one of the other old iMacs, but I really need to get the files first, and since it won't take a Passport I'm wondering if I'm stuck putting files a few at a time on a flash drive. Do you think it would take an ethernet cable? It seems like I tried to connect to my newer iMac but I couldn't get the computers to recognize each other. I followed all the steps for sharing, but I still couldn't get it to work.
Thank you so much.

Have you formatted the Western Digital Passport drive as a Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volume, or is it factory-formatted for PCs? If the oldest iMac is only running OS 8, it can't recognize HFS+ volumes. It was OS 8.1 that introduced that feature. Additionally, the version of the USB support files (which is somewhat OS-dependent) on the iMacs hard drives affects what will or will not be recognized by those older computers. With each successive release of the USB Adapter Support, the database of supported devices was broadened. The easiest way to transfer the contents of the iMac's hard drive is to physically remove it from the computer and connect a USB-to-IDE adapter directly to it. These adapters come with an external power supply to provide the 12 & 5 volts needed to power the drive. The data connection block is designed to fit either a 3.5" hard drive or the smaller 2.5" laptop drive, as well as newer drives that connect via SATA. It has an included USB cable that connects to a standard USB port, enabling direct reading/writing/file transfers from the hard drive to the computer to which it's connected. These adapters are not Mac-specific in terms of design, so you can buy one at a PC store and use it. For the purpose of identifying such an adapter, here's one that's often recommended in these Forums, carried by Other World Computing. As I mentioned, this adapter is not platform-specific, so you can buy/use a less expensive one sold by PCs stores. I bought one for $15 from Micro Center (PC store), and it has worked with Macs and PCs. As for removing the hard drive from the old iMac - and I assume that it's one of the original models with a tray-loading optical drive (as opposed to the slightly newer ones that have a slot-loading optical drive), you can find directions for accomplishing that if you do a web search. The link that I had for one site (that was good for years) is no longer valid. The iMacs that have a problem ejecting disks are undoubtedly slot-loading models. There are two wide rubber rollers inside those optical drives that grip the disk to pull it in or feed it out. Over time, the rubber dries out, causing the rollers to lose their natural gripping capabilities. If those iMacs have a FireWire port on the side, I'd suggest an external FireWire optical drive. Today, the only type you'll find is a DVD±RW drive, which is more than you need for your intended purpose. A basic CD-ROM drive isn't manufactured/sold anymore. Other World Computing has a few FireWire optical drives, but their least expensive model sells for about $100. Obviously, that costs more than the value of the entire iMac at this point, but the drive will also have USB connectivity as well. You may find other uses for it with your other computers (Macs & PCs), especially if they don't have a CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, or DVD±RW drive. As for transferring a program itself, there could be other associated files. You'd want to check the Extensions and Control Panels folders for any that are named to likely indicate being a part of the program's installed files. The Preferences folder will probably have a file that has saved game settings, but a new one would be created when you run the program in another supported computer. Depending on the age of the program - and you indicated that it was on floppy disks - its compatibility with newer, pre-OS X releases might be limited. The external USB floppy drive that you use with the older iMac should read commercial floppy disks, but it will not recognize the older 800K (Double-Density) Mac-formatted floppy disks. They're disks that typically format as 720K floppies in a PC, but the variable-speed FDD in older Power Macs was able to fit an extra 80K of data onto those disks. A standard 720K "PC" floppy disk should be read by that drive, but it can't recognize an 800K "Mac" disk. A 720K/800K Double-Density floppy disk only has the slide-lock hole at one corner, while a High-Density (1.44 MB) floppy disk has an additional hole at the opposite corner to differentiate it from the older type.

Is there a way to use an iPad as an external micrpohone for my imac?

The internal mic on my iMac is dead (and I don't feel like paying a lot for opening in up and stuff), but external should work (I have tested with input from an iPod). So can I get around the problem by some how using my iPad as an external mic? I have found no way of doing this so far.

not as far as I know
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Using G4 as external drive for Intel iMac?

I have a G4 DA with lots of personal information in it, including one bootable HD with OS 9 stuff. I have finally broken down and bought a 20" 2.66 GHz iMac as I can see that software for non-Intel based machines is beginning to dry up.
My question is, is there a way to hook the G4 to the iMac so that it can be used just as any other external drive could be used, without having to attach and detach cables every time I want to do it, or is the difference in processors such that this can't be done?
I know many would say "just transfer the files from one to the other," but I am sentimental about the old machine and don't want to get rid of it. I have upgraded the processor to 1.67 GHz so it is no slowpoke, but it can't compete with the newer ones for applications like video streaming, and I have become tired of seeing the spinning beachball.
Thanks in advance,
Dave

a brody:
One way I have to keep running a G4 for at least 30-40 years is to have 2-3 fully functional backup towers. I have a heavily upgraded Sawtooth and 2 spare towers in waiting for parts. I plan to get at least 1 more if not 2. A Sawtooth can be grabbed for as little as 50-80 on ebay. Even The lower MDD models like the dual 867 are well below 200 now often. Not an overly deep money pit to have some spare hardware.
I also own a Mac Pro but I honestly have more pride in my Sawtooth. The one I run has painted plastics from an automotive painting shop. Along with many many other customizations that would take over this thread to have to list.
My point is that with the proper arsenal of hardware to keep you going for years you can essentially keep running a G4 forever. I can understand someone's need to want to keep a G4 around forever. No matter how slow they are now or will be these towers have an appeal far beyond simple aesthetics.
Message was edited by: zen.state

External SSD for new iMac

Hey all,
I'm investing in the late 2012 iMac, the 3.2ghz model ($1999). Rather then get the Fusion Drive, which has no interface for the SSD and can't be messed with, I was going to purchase my own external SSD (OWC Mercury on the go Pro with USB 3.0) which has read/write up to 586mbs. My theory is to install FCPX on that and house all projects and events there, which will give me a faster workflow. A RAID and Thunderbolt is out of my budget, so I thought this would be a good solution and much faster than the internal HDD.
Thoughts? Ideas? Am I in the right direction or should I reconsider the Fusion, or will the internal HDD be fast enough?

Kappy wrote:
Although with a separate SSD and HDD you have to perform the work yourself you do gain some flexibility in your set up. However, should the urge arise there are numerous tutorial around that explain how to turn the SSD and HDD into a Fusion Drive using the same mechanism that Apple uses.
And the converse is also possible and easy: you can turn the fusion drive back into two separate drives.
If possible, I think you should put up the extra $250 for the Fusion Drive - especially considering this is not an option later on. With such a new machine, the internal hard drive will be the slowest part.
Still, even with a Fusion Drive, an external is strongly recommended. You should install FCP X in your regular system drive (fusion or not), and have your projects and events in an external.
Your proposed solution is adequate, depending only on available space. You only need your working projects and events to fit in the ssd. As long as you move them elsewhere when finished, to make room for the new ones, you'll be more than fine even with a smallish usb3 ssd.

Bus power external drive for Intel IMac recommended?

Getting ready to replace external hard drive.I have a 2TB now that is formatted in to 2 drives, 1 for TM and 1 for clone. Told that TM needed it's own drive and should get a second for clones and other files. I can make a bootable drive out of the external but not TM drive.
I was looking at some bus-powered drives and not sure how IMac and TM on a bus powered drive would work. Am I able to consider these bus powered HD's - they have power supplies available? Can I depend on my Mac/TM to work well with a bus powered drive with an ac adaptor (because of there small size) or should I get a powered external hard drive for Time Machine and something smaller for my clone? Any ideas?
Looking at OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini, GDrive mini and the CalDigit AV drive. Open to any suggestions and using FW800.
Thanks.

I have never trusted bus powered usb devices. I use a powered multi port hub. Not only does this supply bus power to an army of usb devices (printer, scanner, camera, hard drives, etc.), the hub can be placed close to me. No need to reach for hidden usb ports, no trying to figure out which way is up on the plug ....
http://usb-hub-review.toptenreviews.com/
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External boot for 2005 iMac PPC

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