Firewire drive boot order

Hi,
I've got 6 drives appearing on my desktop. Two internal drives and 5 external Firewire drives (some connect to a PCI Firewire card). Some are Firewire 400 and some are 800.
I have each of the external Firewire drives laberlled and identified as 'Firewire_1', 'Firewire_2', etc.
My problem is I'd like these drives to mount in a specific order, i.e. 'Firewire_1', 'Firewire_2', 'Firewire_3', etc.
Is there a way to do this?
Thanks!

Then add the aliases as items to launch in Systems prefs -> Accounts -> Login Items... add item... then add the drives in any order you like disregard the names.
FYI its not clever to use the naming convention you have adopted... with them all starting with the same word etc... when you get filenames truncated you will have a major problem. Give them unique names, you can still number them after they are unique.
Barny 1, Homer 2, Bart 3, Lisa 4
Is far more cunning. Trust me if you have quark and you try to relink files and it gets a little confused you will not be able to resolve it with out major mucking about.
Also... upgrade your drives... this does two things, kills off aged drives, and also you get the option to increase the drive size... thus reducing the number of drives you need. The more junk you got the more time it all takes to be searched and mounted and found and and and...
Cheers
Guy

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Paul:
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I am running xp with sp2.
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Any help would be appreciated.

With SATA you don't have to think about Master/Slave settings because they're essentially not there. Technically, every SATA slot is a master but it's not the same thing as the ATA hard drive.
In short, your SATA drive doesn't count as primary master on the IDE chain. Set your jumper to master on the ATA drive.
I have my system set up this way to dual-boot between Windows x32 on RAID and Windows x64 on the ATA drive. No problems.
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BiosConfigUtility BOOT ORder issues.

I've read posts from years ago, and have yet to see a resolution. But when using the BiosConfigUtility to set the boot order I am unable to set sub boot orders.
Example I get:
Legacy Boot Order
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When I need to set:
Legacy Boot Order
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USB Hard Drive
SATA0
ATAPI CD-ROM Drive
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Has there been any work around, or update to this issue?
P.S. This thread has been moved from Business PCs - Compaq, Elite, Pro to HP PC Client Management. - Hp Forum Moderator

Hi Folks, I came across this thread as I was facing the very same issue with a HP EliteDesk 800 G1 model. We are introducing a USB MDT solution and having the USB boot before the Hard Drive (SATA0) when imaging this model isn't ideal and can cause a bit of confusion with Technicians building for the first time. Its quite easy to forget and walk away and think the deployment will complete only to see it boot back into the MDT WINPE environment. Anyways much like yourselfs I couldn't deal with the sub menu for the Hard Drive Boot order. tried many things. What seemed to work for me is as follows. Get the config file using the BiosConfigUtilty.exe /GetConfig:config.txt Open up the config.txt and change the Hard Drive Entry to include the following: Hard Drive (SATA1 or USB Hard Drive)orHard Drive (SATA1) The values are what you see when you do a F9 boot, my test machine Hard Drive was being identified as SATA1 and the USB value as USB Hard Drive. Your system may identify the Hard Drive as SATA0 so just adjust as necessary. The first option suits me as I need to initially boot to a USB flash drive, although as I am testing as I write it does't seem to make much of a difference. By appending the (SATA1) entry or whatever sata port your device is using, seems to force the BIOS to use the Proper Hard Drive as the first device rather than using the USB. Once happy apply the settingBiosConfigUtilty.exe /SetConfig:config.txt and reboot. Hopefully this will ammend the boot order. Just as side note, if you reget the config you will not see the settings that you added. It does work but keep the ammended file for future use. I am hoping to incorporate this into a MDT task sequence within the WINPE phase so that when the pc reboots it goes straight to the Hard Drive. Cheers, Ewen.

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

IMac G5 won't boot from an external Seagate Freeagent FireWire drive

Hi guys,
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Honestly, that's exactly what I would do if I had hands-on access to the iMac, but such a swap is a bit beyond my sister's skill-set.
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Issues:
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*Details of issues*:
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Are you able to help/ Thank you.
Sincerely,
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Extra comments;
I also tried the following, which did not fix the startup (*Once up, Windows works well!*):
1. Checked for file and disk errors (ckdsk?? on startup).
2. Purged temporary internet and other temporary files (using internet options and disk cleanup utilities)
3. Cleared out Prefetch files.
4. Emptied trash.
5. Under "msconfig", I found 4 items there as startup items. I disabled Adobe Reader and Quicktime helpers, leaving only thus 2 startup items of the 4 enabled (Bulldog and some Microsoft thing).
6. Defragmented.
No better results.
Sincerely,
Wilson

Cannot Boot from OSX on external firewire drive

I recently bought a seagate hardrive and installed it in an external firewire casing. I partitioned it into two partitions, and installed osx 10.4.10 on one of the partitions, the same as is running on my Ti Book.
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That not working, i created a clone of my startup disk using DejaVu in my system preferences and saved it on the other, empty partition on the external drive and tried booting from that.
On restarting, i get the grey screen once again as the backlight fires up, and nothing more. the screen remains grey without any further ado until i hold the power button and force it to turn off. then as i start it up again, up comes the flashing question mark icon followed by a boot from the internal drive.
Any Solutions on this?
Many Thanks, Neptune.

Hi Dale,
Whoops- everythings not as smooth as i thought it was!
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do you?

Is it possible to boot a G4 (pci graphics) from an external firewire drive?

I have a Lacie 250 gig bootable external firewire drive which is recognized on my Power PC G4 400 but I cannot get it to boot from this drive. The procedure works fine on my ibook... I looked into a possible firmware update but the apple site says no update is necessary for the G4 400/pci graphics...
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There sure are some radically contradictory posts here! (This isn't typical, at least in this section of the Discussions, RMx2.)
Can anyone who has posted here (or might join in here) actually boot from a hard drive connected via USB? I just tested this with OS X and I can't. For some time now, the Discussions have been riddled with posts, whether 100% accurate or inaccurate, that Macs don't boot from USB drives, despite the seemingly conflicting info in the article that Don kindly referenced. (John Huber: Don't eat your words just yet, John!)
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My G3 running OS X 10.3.9 sees the USB-connected drives in the Startup Disk Preference Pane, but when I click to Restart after selecting the USB system folder there, I get a beachball (haven't seen that in awhile...) and have to Force Quit System Preferences. Console tells me that that it could not get open firmware information or set open firmware information, and that it can't touch or set System/Library/CoreServices/BootX, returning Error 1 running bless.
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Gary
Message was edited by: Majordadusma

Having difficulty in Win 8.1 changing boot order drive at the Bios level

My desktop computer has 32GB of DDR3-1600Mhz Memory plus a 128GB SSD boot drive "C" and 2 2TB SATA drives and finally a 1TB Sata drive.
My problem is that the 128GB SSD drive is maxed out space wise. I want to change the boot drive to the 1TB drive, but when I go into the Bios, and slect "Boot Order" it only lists two CD Rom drives and "Windows Boot Manager". If i go out to look at available drives, it shows all my drives. How the heck can I select the 1TB drive to become the boot drive if its not even listed under "Boot Drives"?
Using disk partitioning software, it advises that before copying everything over from the boot SSD drive to the new 1 TB drive, I should change the boot drive so that when it starts up again, it will go directly to the correct drive.
Thanks so much,
Ken

That is impressive for a OEM. However, I think it is probably not a good idea to try to make a different drive the boot drive. Typically with a unit set up like that, the SSD is only used for essentially the OS and special programs that need the extra speed of the SSD. Then use the other drives for data and nonessential ( for speed ) software. About the only advice I can give is to reassess the way software is installed to get some things off the SSD or replace the SSD with a larger capacity unit. I think switching boot drives will be a nightmare you will not enjoy.
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Please click "Accept As Solution" if my help has solved your problem. ----------}
This is a user supported forum. I am a volunteer and I do not work for HP.

How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
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This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

How to boot from external firewire drive

Apparently my internal HD on the powerbook has died as it repeatedly gives me the black screen "restart" message and re-install of system software fails.
I have an external bootable firewire drive, which is a "carbon copy" of my iMac, however, it's SnowLeopard not Leopard, so is there any way I can use the firewire drive to boot off of on the G4 or any other suggestions?
Also, does anyone know what Apple typically charges to replace the internal drive in the PB G4? I looked at the video for doing it myself and that is not an option for me.
Thanks!

The black screen restart message, or kernel panic, can be caused by a number of causes, most which are typically hardware-related, and many times a problem with memory. Try re-seating the memory to see if that makes a difference.
This is a good read on kernel panics: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
If you have the original OS X disks that came with the system, find the first one that should say 'AHT Version x.x' in small print on the label. Insert it and reboot while holding the alt/option key down. Choose the Apple hardware test, and when prompted, choose the extended test. That might give you some additional information on any hardware issue(s).
You can't use your Snow Leopard bootable drive on the Powerbook, as Snow Leopard requires an Intel-based system.
If it turns out it is a hard drive issue, be aware that Apple will keep your current hard drive as a trade in on a new drive. Some people have private data on the hard drive and have a concern with it leaving their ownership (even if the drive isn't working).

Imac G4 700 - can I boot off a firewire drive?

The internal hard drive in my iMac G4 has died. I'm not afraid of working inside computers, but from what I've read online, it appears to be a major pain in the *** to replace the hard drive on this generation of iMacs.
Is it possible to boot off an external firewire hard drive instead of trying to replace the internal one? I would probably just buy a firewire enclosure off newegg and stick a standard IDE hard drive in it. Will this work?

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions.
I would
also like to say that some cheap Firewire chipsets are unreliable for booting. I could never get the Prolific 3507 chipset in one of my Firewire drives to boot. Go for an Oxford chipset if you can. There's loads of choice here:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire
Best regards
mrtotes

Can WinXP be loaded and booted from external firewire drive?

The subject line probably says it all but:
Does the recent firmware upgrade and/or BootCamp allow you to install WinXP on an external Firewire drive rather than partitioning the iMac Core Duo's internal drive?
Mike
Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6)

The other problem is XP itself doesn't support booting from firewire. Even if someone could figure out how to install to an external from bootcamp, you would still have to contend with XP.
Glor

External firewire as boot drive

I plan to add an external firewire drive to my 466 SE Graphite (10.4.6) as an alternative to the apparently labor-intensive process of replacing its original internal 10GB drive. Then I'll clone the iBook drive to the external with SuperDuper. The external drive I'm looking at is 160GB, 7200rpm with an 8mb data buffer. Which leads to my question:
When booted to the cloned drive, will I notice any kind of performance increase w/Tiger based on the superior specs of the external? If so, wouldn't it be feasible to operate the iBook while booted to the external on a full-time basis?
Just curious to know your opinions/experience. I suppose I'll know the answer myself soon enough.
Thanks!
2.0 DP G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) iBook 466 SE Graphite (576MB)

Hello,
The external FireWire drive would be slower than a comparable drive installed internally.
But, the drive inside your iBook right now is going to be either 4200 R.P.M. or 5400 R.P.M. and a bit slower by design.
So, you will see a very noticeable improvement with an external FireWire drive in terms of performance.
I know my external 7200 R.P.M. Hitachi DeskStar FireWire drive is faster to operate from than my built-in 5400 R.P.M. drive in my Mac Mini G4.
The programs open much faster if I use the external FireWire drive as my primary drive.
I would expect you to see similar improvements doing the same with your system.
And, yes, it is perfectly feasible to use the drive as your primary drive.
For the record, my external drive is an Other World Computing "Neptune" 120 GB drive. The actual mechanism is a Hitachi DeskStar 7200 R.P.M. 120 GB drive with a 2 MB cache.
I hope this helps.

Firewire drive boot order

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