Is it possible to make an iPod a bootable disk?

I am pretty certain you can but it is bad for the ipod. Maybe someone else has a more complete answer for you.

-Zach

 

Apparently it is, I don't currently have one, but my friend (a long time Maccie) has installed OSX on his 10gig iPod and reports that it will boot his Ti PB.

There was a comment on the forums that its not a good idea as OSX puts a lot of strain on the disc (UNIX don't ya know...), but you can run .aiff files off the disc, so they must be streamed.

FireWire booting is OK from Macs with built in ports, I understand there's a problem with PCI card based ports.

 

i do it all the time. just install it and boot away. i just dont think apple provides technical support for that. but as long as its under warranty do what ever want. apple has been pretty good with the warranties on these ipods, even replacing them due to customer abuse. i left mine in my backpack and smashed the screen in, they just gave me a new one.

iJon

 

are you serious about apple giving you a free one because YOU broke it? wow...it didn't say that in the warranty...

 

Hey you guys, I just had a great idea!

We leave it until two weeks after a Macworld expo (or when iPods are updated), then all stocks of the old iPods will be gone. THEN, we all "accidentally" drop our iPods, we then, in desperation, call Apple and beg for a replacement iPod with bigger hard drive, colour screen and what not.

 

Re: Is it possible to make an iPod a bootable disk?

Stripped down OS X would be difficult, space-consuming, slow, and disk-thrashing.

If you plan on booting a machine from it, I would put a <50MB stripped down OS 9 on there only with necessary apps/extensions. the complete opposite of all the disadvantages i mentioned above.

that'd be cool to boot a pure Darwin install off one. can anyone say, hacker-to-go?

 

yeah, theres also a funny twist to this. Since i broke it and from working back in apple service i knew there would be a snowball's chance in hell that they would fix this under warranty. understanding this i went into the back storage room and took a new ipod off the shelf. but my mom decided to send it back to apple anyways. we sent it in as "video problems". a couple days passed and they shipped me a brand new 5 gb ipod. i was like sweeeeet, but then i thought, well i just got a new ipod. so i had to end up selling my new ipod to someone at the store as a used model (since the warranty had started, not because it was open). so basically i got a new ipod and lost about 25 dollars (because thats how much less i sold it for since it was "used") through the whole happening. oh yeah, it doesnt state than in the warranty im betting, it just depends if your ipod lands in the hands of a dick.... i mean a guy who follows the rules or a cool guy at apple service. i think you guys can figure out which one got mine

iJon

 

You can boot off an iPod, it'll just shorten the life of the HD by a significant amount. The HD was meant to spin up once every 20 minutes, then spin down after it loads the MP3s into RAM, 30 seconds to a minute. It was not designed to run constantly.