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Confused and Confounded!

stubeeef

stubeeef

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Well maya helped steer me away from the westdig media ctr-it was not a bootable drive for the mac without partitioning the drive, But I went out today to pic up a LaCie but could not find one without having to drive a ways. Saw this seagate external hd at worstbuy and wondered if it was a bootable drive.

It will serve as a bu for my 12" pb 1.33.

Thanks for any advice, may order the LaCie, but the seagate was inexpensive but so new I couldn't find a review. Would greatly appreciate a tap from the MR knowledge base.
 
My opinion is that the Lacie drive is a prosumer product. The Seagate drive is a home user product. Therefore, if you can afford the Lacie drive, go for it. It'll probably last longer, perform better, and it just looks better.
 
Well this drive will live a tright life doing a single backup every night. My real question is if anyone knows if that seagate is a bootable drive or not. I am NO techy, and have no ideas what makes a drive bootable for a mac. Is it the chipset or software?
I am now stuck on what to do, a good friend is a mac guru, was saying he can build me one with a hitachi drive and enclosure for $200 (250gb) just to be nice-as a born skeptic-are the hitachi drives any good?

tanks
 
3Memos said:
Hitachi drives are from IBM originally. They are excellent drives.
Click to expand...
they ARE great drives. Why not buy an OWC FW drive from them direct? They use IBM/HItachi drives as well and they are amazing. I built my own with OWC enclosures and seagate barracuda drives, but that's cause I wanted the quiet drives for my recording studio.

p.s. I boot from it all the time.
 
It's not the chipset. As far as I know, you can boot from any FireWire drive. I'd say buy whatever has the best warranty. The Seagate should be fine, the LaCie probably being only a little better. Built tougher, cooler, or quieter maybe. Other than that, it's just a regular drive in a fancy case. You can save money by getting a regular drive and putting it into a firewire case, like OWCs, unless Seagate's is cheaper with rebate or something.
 
thanks everyone, it is helping, I might just have my buddy to bto for me with the hitachi.

solvs, I was reading a review by mac folks (forgot who) on the western digital media ctr and they said the only way to make it a bootable drive was to partition it, the review on the maxtor one touch II mentioned it was a bootable drive for mac types. Needless to say, I started to then get dizzy.

Then of course I made the mistake of asking a question about the seagate while at bestbuy, the "expert" told me that there aren't any drives that are bootable for mac, I then proceeded to not be nice, ooppps. 🙂

Thanks for the help people, keep it coming, I won't do anything before 10:30am est today.
 
stubeeef said:
solvs, I was reading a review by mac folks (forgot who) on the western digital media ctr and they said the only way to make it a bootable drive was to partition it, the review on the maxtor one touch II mentioned it was a bootable drive for mac types.
Click to expand...
You'll have to format it for a Mac. Other than that, any drive will do. Some that come with their own software, like the One-Touchs may have Mac specific software. But if you're just using it as a regular external firewire drive, it won't matter.

I still would suggest just getting a regular drive from wherever it's cheapest, and a nice case from OWC.

Or, you know, one of the drives I'm selling in my sig. 😛
 
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