Leopard Universal boot from Firewire

I've followed some instructions I've read here and on other Mac sites about how to created an external drive which can boot both PPC and Intel Macs. I THINK I did everything correctly, but I can't boot an Intel Mac with the external drive I used. First, I formatted my external drive on a PPC into three partitions. Then I created an image of the Leopard Installer disk and "restored" it to the first partition. Then I ran the installer from the first partition to the second partition (also on a PPC) and appeared to have a successful install of Leopard. Now, though, when I use this drive on an Intel Mac, even though that second partition appears as being bootable in the Startup Disk preference, I cannot boot from it - the Mac reverts to the first partition i.e. the one with the Leopard installer. Have I made a mistake here, or did I just get a bad installation from the first partition? Thanks.

Good post and difficult to answer without alot of trial and error. I've accomplished this objective but made some mistakes along the way and countermeasured them finally.
When you partitioned the external did you check under options in Disk Utility that the mapping way APM ie Apple Partition Map? I know Disk Utility is to pick the proper choice as default but I had some situations where it did not.
Second when you restore that image that's fine but why would you install Leopard on the next partition? No need. Once you restored the Leopard DVD to the partition using APM then you can boot a PPC or Intel Mac. Then you can install Leopard to your drive of choice. You can even open Disk Utility with that partition booted and use it to trouble shoot.
As far as the problem when you did install Leopard on that other partition I can't answer that question. The Macfixit article was good but as the guy stated in both articles he was not sure on the proper method. You don't need to make an image file first. You can just drag the DVD from the left hand column to "source."

Similar Messages

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

Boot from FireWire External Drive WITHOUT mounting internal Hard Drive

Is it possible too boot a PowerBook G4 over FireWire (this part works) WITHOUT mounting the internal hard drive at boot time - i.e. never mount the internal hard drive when booting from FireWire?
There is an Oreilly article at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/341 which discusses using "niutil" but it is not clear how to indicate the internal hard drive should not be mounted.
The boot from FireWire works fine but how do you tell Mac OS X to ignore and never mount the internal hard drive? There used to be an /etc/fstab file where you could specify drives to mount. The /etc/fstab.hd file comments now say "IGNORE THIS FILE.
This file does nothing, contains no useful data, and might go away in
future releases. Do not depend on this file or its contents."
Thanks,

That is not the problem - I have been using the startup manager by holding down the option key during boot-up. I am having no problem getting the PowerBook to boot from the FireWire Drive.
*The Problem* is that after the PowerBook has booted from the exernal FireWire drive, I still see the internal hard drive of the PowerBook on the desktop. I do not want this. Some key points to note:
[1] I can unmount the interal hard drive and remove from the desktop only by using the Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder. There is a button there to "unmount selected volume"
[2] The finder does not have an icon next to the internal hard drive icon to allow the internal hard drive to be unmounted when booted from a FireWire drive
[3] I want the MacOS X kernel to be configured to not automount any hard drive volumes at bootup - this used to be possible by editing the /etc/fstab.hd file but that file does not appear to be used any more per the commennts in the file.
**Remaining Question** How do you configure the MacOS X kernel to prevent it from mounting any other hard drive at boot time? I do not want to use methods [1] or [2]
Thanks

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.

Leopard will not boot from Firewire HD

Hello,
The issue is this,
I have a Mac Mini G4 (M9687LL/A) and I am "trying" to install 10.5 on to a external firewire drive. The Drive is Acomdata 160GB Firewire dirve with a Partition Type of Apple Partition Map and is formated in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) So I boot off the Leopard install DVD and I install it to the firewire drive and all goes well. Then when I try to boot from this drive it will not boot off the FWHD. When I restart the mac and hold the option key to get the boot menu, I do not see the Firewire drive only the internal drive? So if someone can help me on this or is having the same issue let me know. Thanks

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Unfortunately, Acomdata's record on the matter isn't quite clean*:
http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html
My recommendation, swap out the hard drive case and put another one in its place around the hard drive that is known to be compatible. The only two companies I know of are http://www.macsales.com/ and http://www.cooldrives.com/
There may be others you can write to on the above FAQ*. The problem is not all Firewire nor USB drives are bootable.
Another thing you may be running into is that if you want to use the keyboard to startup from an external drive, you may need an Apple keyboard to be certain the C or Option keys work. Option key should work if you have the right keyboard:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178
Finally, Time Machine is not a bootable backup, but does backup everything. Currently only Carbon Copy Cloner, and Apple's Disk Utility offer bootable backups of Leopard.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Booting from firewire target mode on a mac pro with kernel panic?

hello
i am wondering if it is possible to use firewire target mode to boot a mac pro that has never got past a multi language kernel panic on boot?
basically i have tried all the other options and cant get it to open the superdrive to insert my installation disk, as to repair the drivers with my snow leopard disk.
i've tried holding my mouse key down, the paperclip option on the drive itself and the firmware keycombo, so my idea is that the only way to fix it is with target mode. can this be done - and if so - could someone direct me towards a tutorial that will help me do this.
please advise if this is possible or if there is another method i should use? apart from taking it to the applestore (extreme last ditch option) i am quite low on ideas here.
many thanks!
p.s heres the message i wrote for the original problem which caused all the kernel panics;
"i recently bought a mac pro and upon starting it for the first time opted to transfer the all the data i could over via firewire from my macbook pro.
i used the standard 't' command with the firewire symbol.
Somewhere towards the end of the transfer (I am not sure at what pont - I wasnt there for all of it) - , the monitor went blank and the whole thing was unresponsive. my macbook's firewire sign continued to move around the screen.
after leaving it for some time i decided to turn off the macbook and then the mac pro.
i restarted the macbook and got some pretty crazy stuff happening to my calender - but so far everything seems to be fine.
i am more concerned about the "you need to restart your computer" message; this is the dreaded 'kernel panic' right?. i have never actually done anything with this computer yet, and it was purchased new."

"i recently bought a mac pro and upon starting it for the first time opted to transfer the all the data i could over via firewire from my macbook pro.
Never opt to transfer until you have insured it works fine for a couple days, I would never use Setup or Migration Assistant until such time, and I would have a bootable backup clone.
Try pulling all the hard drives from inside your Mac Pro and boot from OS X DVD - latest OS build.

IMac G4 won't boot from FireWire HDD

Hi everyone, I recently got a 1st generation iMac G4 with OS 9.2. I updated RAM to 768 mb and now I'd like to install Tiger on it. I found my old Tiger DVD but it looks like the DVD drive in to the iMac doesn't work properly. When I put in the DVD, it spins a little bit and than is expelled. After a few attempts, I was able to make the iMac read it, and open the installer, but when I pressed the Restart button I got an error saying that the CD (??) could not be set as startup device. It was indeed grayed out in the Startup Disk Control Panel. I don't know whether the problem is the DVD drive or the disk itself (which looks a bit scratchy).
On the Internet I found out that I could try to boot via FireWire on an external HDD. I had the .dmg of the Tiger DVD I did when I bought the original disk, and with the Restore option I put the image on the drive (1 TB, FW400 MyBook, previously formatted in a single partition using Apple Partition Map) so that it can be recognized by OS9 as a bootable DVD. And indeed it is. The problem is that, again, when I press the restart button in the Install Mac OS X program I get the same error massage saying: "Startup Disk was unable to select the install CD as the startup disk (-2)". This time, though, I can manage to manually set the external drive as the startup disk, but when I reboot I get the "question mark icon" (which usually means that the Mac is unable read the partition selected), and then it reboots in OS9. I cannot understand if the partition I created is not bootable, or if the drive is not read by the open firmware on boot. If I boot with the option key depressed, the only boot option I get is the internal HDD, and I can't manage to see the external HDD: I tried to change cable, change ports, press refresh button multiple times, but it doesn't see the FireWire drive. I also tried to reset NVRAM (which brought back to life the internal speaker), open firmware and PMU, in this order, but this didn't solve the problem.
So what else can I do? Thank you for your help, I hope my English was good enough for you to understand the problem :)
Dario

Unfortunately, it didn't work :( so the situation now is as follows: I bought a FW400-to-FW800 adapter on eBay, and it perfectly works; my mid-2010 MacBookPro (Snow Leopard) has a perfectly working SuperDrive; I have a copy of Tiger's retail DVD with some scratches and a copy of the same DVD I made from a disk image of Tiger that I made when I bought the disk some years ago.
So I connected the 2 Macs via the FireWire cable+adapter, I booted the MacBook in Target Disk Mode and put the DVD (I tried with both of them) in the SuperDrive, and then turned on the iMac on OS 9.2, but nothing appears on it's desktop. On the System Profiler, in the Devices&Volumes tab, in the FireWire section I only see a kind of code that I also see when there's nothing plugged in. I tried to change FireWire ports but nothing happens, apart from the iMac freezing sometimes. Am I doing something wrong? Or is it the case my MacBook is not suitable to do this job?
Thanks again

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?

No shared network access when booted from Firewire

I can't seem to access any volumes on my network when my MacMini is booted from an ext. firewire drive. I've tried to do this from two seperate bootable FW drives and I can't access my NAS or any of the other Macs on my network. This is an issue that I just noticed. I have worked with Macs and PCs across networks for a while but I can't figure this one out for some reason.
I'm running MacMini 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo and I'm on 10.5.8. Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATED/SOLVED---I finally figured this problem out. **Note: This whole process began with the desire to expand my original MacMini's 75GB HD space and to avoid potential disaster. I have recently been going through a spate of HD failures and I really wanted to avoid such a calamity with my main system volume. So the goal was to, in effect, replace the MacMini's drive without having to open it up by simply buying a new 1TB drive and dropping it into a FW enclosure with a huge fan. I had hoped that a simple BounceBack recover would do the trick but I quickly found out that it was not to be.
The problem existed on backup copies that were created by my old version (5.1.4) of BounceBack (that I never updated). For whatever reason, that version excludes necessary components for networking when making bootable volumes. Therefore all my external FW drives that were bootable were not truly complete/useable volumes. Here's how I came to that conclusion and how I ultimately solved the problem.
1. I ended up having to do a reinstall of Leopard. I did this by cloning Leopard install disc to an image file and then restoring that image file to the FW drive. The real purpose of cloning the install disc was to immediately test the veracity of my theory that the problem lay within my BounceBack bootable volumes and not with the FW drives themselves. Sure enough, I found everything to be working perfectly from the newly minted, clean install Leopard FW volume. So then...
2. ...I cloned the MacMini's orginal internal HD. It was the only volume with my most recent system that did NOT have the aforementioned network access problems and it was the volume from which all of the other BounceBack volumes were created.
3. I restored this volume to the FW drive and was rewarded with a brand new, expanded and fully working system volume with all my applications and settings intact.
To be fair, I feel compelled to mention that this is not necessarily an indictment of BounceBack. Again, the copy I was using is several years old and I simply never paid for an update, thinking that the copy I was using was sufficient. I'm willing to bet that the makers of BounceBack solved this problem long ago with one of the many updates since that have been released I first purchased the software. That being said, I'm now using Time Machine for backups of my system volume while utilizing BounceBack for data on other volumes that don't need to be bootable.

Computer Freezes When Booting From Firewire HDD

I was trying to boot from my firewire drive, so that I could use CCC and restore the internal drive. After using CCC to back up the internal drive, and then getting the computer to boot from the firewire drive, boot-up froze when it got to the blue screen (after the Apple logo). The mouse was functioning, but that was it. Can anyone suggest anything?
The Firewire drive is a WD MyBook Home Edition. I've JUST updated the firmware, but I haven't tried again yet. I've also heard about the GUID option, but I can't remember if I turned that on or not. Also: The disk contains data which can't be moved or deleted, so re-partitioning the drive is out.
If booting doesn't work, can I use CCC to clone a disk image, boot from the Leopard DVD, and restore the internal drive using the cloned image with Disk Utility?

You can't change the partition scheme to GUID without erasing, but [this article|http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071129085410333] in MacFixit contains the following:
"although a PowerPC Mac will not boot from a GUID-partitioned disk (the "native" partitioning for an Intel Mac boot disk), an Intel Mac will boot from an APM-partitioned disk (the "native" partitioning for a PPC boot disk)"
I've seen similar discussions elsewhere as well. My retail Leopard install DVD, bootable on both PPC and Intel Macs, has an APM partition scheme. An Intel Mac will not INSTALL OS X onto an APM-partioned disk, but that is not the same thing. I think that a CCC clone of an Intel-bootable volume onto a disk with an APM partition scheme should still be bootable. I would check further at the [CCC forum|http://forums.bombich.com/viewforum.php?f=12] for confirmation; if so, your problem is elsewhere.
You said the disk contains data which can't be moved - did you create the clone on the same volume that contained this data or did you have a different partition on the drive that you could erase first? If the "data that can't be moved or deleted" on the external drive is not itself backed up somewhere else, it should be.
Would backing up to an disk image, and restoring using the Leopard Install DVD work? This is primarily to defragment my disk, as Boot Camp won't run without contiguous disk space.
I think this should work but is risky because you can't boot the disk-image to test it beforehand to be sure it is OK. And if it is not OK, you won't find out until after the restore has failed on your now-erased internal HD.

How do i get a dvd with osx snow leopard to boot from since i lost mine?

Having trouble with my early 2009 intel iMac. I have reset PRAM and SRC, used disk utility in safe mode to repair disk permissions (several were found/repaired) and tried to verify disk. System said it could not verify disk because it needed to be repaired while booted from another source. I could not find my OSX Snow Leopard disk, tried to start from Leopard disk. Now the system wont go through boot process at all. the gray screen with logo and progress bar appears, but after a minute the computer shuts down. I did run the apple hardware test (start up while holding D key) and no hardware issues were found. This must be a software issue.
Is there a way I can download a copy of OSX Snow Leopard on my laptop so I can burn a disk to boot my iMac from so I can repair the disk?

You will need the Mac OS X DVD later, because it's clear that there's a problem with the hard disk. Your Mac turns off because fsck couldn't repair the hard drive, so Mac OS X can't start up. Your only option is to format the hard drive, because it's not possible to repair it.
As you have the Leopard DVD, insert it and hold the C key while your Mac is starting. Then, choose your language and go to Utilities menu (on the menu bar) > Disk Utility, choose your hard drive at the top of the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the drive. If it's working properly, close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X.
If it couldn't be erased, the hard drive is damaged and you need a different one

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

Can I install Snow Leopard and boot from software RAID 1 (mirror)?

I have a Mac Pro (quad core 2.66 GHz) on order for my office workstation. Yeah, I know new ones are probably coming out early next year but due to budget and upcoming projects I need one now. What I'd like to do is replace the pre-installed 640GB drive with two 1 TB drives and mirror them. The 640GB drive will be redeployed to another machine in the office. Can I boot from the Snow Leopard install DVD, go to Disk Utility, setup a RAID 1 with the two drives, install Snow Leopard to the mirror and then boot off the mirror set?
I've searched and found offhand comments to the effect that installing to and booting from a software mirror is OK, but I'd like to know for sure that it's OK. Any experience that you have with such a configuration would be nice to hear.

Yes. But before you do read the following:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

Booted from firewire external disk, internet slow

Hi,
My iMac is currently being booted from external disk via Firewire 800. I have to do this until I receive new install disks from apple to resore my machine.
The computer is usable, however internet is very slow... I have other devides, windows machine, ipad, iphone and they all run okay.
It seems that because I have booted via the external disk..... internet is slow. Could this be as the OS is needed to refer to the external disk?
Any suggestions to correct this please?
thanks
Mark

I need to restore from a time machine backup - full system restore, only possible from orignial install disks supplied with my imac apparently.
The bootable external disk , is actually the orignial boot disk, however has disk problems - SMART warning, and when trying to restore this disk to the new installed disk, it fails.
I can only boot from it, and run some of the apps on it.
I know that it seems strange that I have slow internet, but it seems to be the case.
Internet seems to pause lots of times, I wonder if its something to do with tmp files on the external disk.
I have tried downloading Lion to upgrade and use this as a method of getting a bootable system, but Lion has been downloading for 3 days, and I have had to abort a couple of times.
It does seem odd, but cant think of anything else.

Problems in booting from Firewire disk

I had an iMac 400 G3 until recently, just got a mini Core Duo 1.66.
My Firewire 120 GB disk was always the main disk, but now I cannot install the Tiger disk that came with the Mac mini on it (it says my Mac cannot boot from this volume), even though it recognizes the disk just fine when I boot from the Mini's HD.
Maybe it's the system in it, since it has the 10.4.8. with PPC updates? Should I erase the system from my disk and try to install OS X on it?
Thanks a lot.

The simplest way to do this is to connect your external drive to the mini and copy all your data from it to the mini's internal drive. Don't copy applications or MacOS, just the documents and files, video, music etc. Then use Disk Utilities (in Applications/utilities) to reformat the external.
Download and install a copy of CarbonCopyCloner (from www.versiontracker.com) and use it to copy the internal drive to the external.
Then open System Preferences/Startup Disk and set the external as the startup volume. Reboot and the system should then boot to the external which has a fully compatible copy of MacOS, complete with your documents, files, music etc.
The startup Disk preference pane can then be used to switch back to the internal if you should need to do so.

Leopard Universal boot from Firewire

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