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ibook G4 (success booting usb ssd)

tom vilsack

tom vilsack

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 20, 2010
1,880
63
ladner cdn
Just thought I would share (may help others)

-Installed leopard to 12" ibook G4 1.2GHz 512mb mem
-Used "super duper" to clone to ssd external enclosure
-External ssd plugged into left closest to front usb port
-Open disk utility and click on ssd on left pane (probably called "untitled") and pick "information" and write down what it says for "disk identifier"...mine was disk1s3
-Reboot ibook and boot into "open firmware" by holding down Command Option O+F
-now to get ssd to boot type (without quotes) "boot usb0/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi" and hit enter

note: you may have to place the "3" in the line above with whatever number you came up with from "disk identifier final digit"
 
tom vilsack

tom vilsack

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 20, 2010
1,880
63
ladner cdn
couple extra notes:

-after using the external usb ssd hd for a few days it definitely seems snappier....the ibook loads programs faster and even internet browsing gives less lag when scrolling.

-i made a usb boot stick of osx leopard dvd and used above method (in first post) to boot from it and do a clean install,and works great.
 
jrsx

jrsx

macrumors 65816
Nov 2, 2013
1,057
18
Tacoma, Washington
WOW this is extremely helpful!!!! Thanks for the information! I need to do this with a USB clone drive in a week, and ran into this!
 
F

ftracy

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2016
1
0
USA
Almost there, but when I enter:
"boot usb0/disk@1:0,\\:tbxi" and hit enter, then I get:
"load-size=0 adler32=1"
I can't for the life of me figure out how to increase this load size. Any help would be great. Thanks!
 
MacCubed

MacCubed

macrumors 68000
Apr 26, 2014
1,618
494
Florida
ftracy said:
Almost there, but when I enter:
"boot usb0/disk@1:0,\\:tbxi" and hit enter, then I get:
"load-size=0 adler32=1"
I can't for the life of me figure out how to increase this load size. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Just try boot ud:,\\:tbxi

Next time make a new thread, as we don't know what your issue is!
 
thescotsman4

thescotsman4

macrumors member
Nov 11, 2015
42
11
tom vilsack said:
Just thought I would share (may help others)

-Installed leopard to 12" ibook G4 1.2GHz 512mb mem
-Used "super duper" to clone to ssd external enclosure
-External ssd plugged into left closest to front usb port
-Open disk utility and click on ssd on left pane (probably called "untitled") and pick "information" and write down what it says for "disk identifier"...mine was disk1s3
-Reboot ibook and boot into "open firmware" by holding down Command Option O+F
-now to get ssd to boot type (without quotes) "boot usb0/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi" and hit enter

note: you may have to place the "3" in the line above with whatever number you came up with from "disk identifier final digit"
Click to expand...

Literally have my 12" PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, 1.25 GB RAM copying it's hard drive over to a 64GB mSata SSD right now. Looking forward to testing it out and then replacing the hard drive which sounds like it is on its last legs. Thanks for the added information!
 
M

Markus23

macrumors newbie
Feb 2, 2016
4
1
ftracy said:
Almost there, but when I enter:
"boot usb0/disk@1:0,\\:tbxi" and hit enter, then I get:
"load-size=0 adler32=1"
I can't for the life of me figure out how to increase this load size. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Click to expand...

0 does not strike me as a valid partition number (in the disk@1:0 part). Is that really what you see when you use disk utility to check the disk identifier for the partition in question?
[doublepost=1455350611][/doublepost]
MacCubed said:
Just try boot ud:,\\:tbxi

Next time make a new thread, as we don't know what your issue is!
Click to expand...

The problem with iBook G4s is that they don't have the "ud" devalias in OpenFirmware (at least my late 2004 model doesn't). In my case as well, usb0/disk@1 is the correct alias for the USB port closest to the front of the laptop.
 
Hack5190

Hack5190

macrumors 6502a
Oct 21, 2015
531
311
(UTC-05:00) Cuba
A bump for sucess :D

Using SuperDuper! I created a backup of my PowerBook G4 to an external powered USB drive.

Using the above command with a change for the second USB port (boot usb1/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi) I was able to boot from the backup.

Thanks for posting this, I now have a backup solution for the PowerBook.
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,824
26,934
I'm just going to note here something interesting I've found.

I have a USB 2.0/FW400 PCI card in my QS. I am able to boot directly from a USB stick attached to my card using the boot loader (the one you get when you boot holding down the OPTN key).

Because it scans the bus it takes a while for the USB stick to be recognized, but it boots just fine. No Open Firmware involved for me.

Why this works, I don't know but it's only with items attached to my USB card. Further note, that when booted the USB stick is not recognized as a boot drive under Startup disk in System Preferences.

It's an odd thing, but I'll take it. :D
 
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Hack5190

Hack5190

macrumors 6502a
Oct 21, 2015
531
311
(UTC-05:00) Cuba
Today while hardening the Leopard install on my PoweBook I trumped it really bad :(. Using the information from this thread, a recent backup on a USB drive and SuperDuper I was able to restore my PB :D.
 
redhatcode29

redhatcode29

macrumors 6502
Jul 21, 2014
471
49
Kuala Lumpur
tom vilsack said:
Just thought I would share (may help others)

-Installed leopard to 12" ibook G4 1.2GHz 512mb mem
-Used "super duper" to clone to ssd external enclosure
-External ssd plugged into left closest to front usb port
-Open disk utility and click on ssd on left pane (probably called "untitled") and pick "information" and write down what it says for "disk identifier"...mine was disk1s3
-Reboot ibook and boot into "open firmware" by holding down Command Option O+F
-now to get ssd to boot type (without quotes) "boot usb0/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi" and hit enter

note: you may have to place the "3" in the line above with whatever number you came up with from "disk identifier final digit"
Click to expand...

Will this work for an external hdd ? Via usb...
 
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