Boot Power Mac Cube?

[abouthillier]

My primary computer is a Macbook Pro (late 2011) with Mountain Lion. Recently, I found an old Power Mac (G4?) Cube at my work that had the clicks of death. I happened to have an old 300GB IDE hard drive taken out of an old PC desktop and did the old switcheroo. I did format the old drive (can't remember how) before putting it in the mac.

Now of course when it boots, it shows the little mac icon and a question mark. I'm assuming that this means it can't find an operating system, as should be the case.

I have a 320GB USB Transcend Drive I used to SuperDuper! my MacBook Pro, thinking I could boot the Power Mac with it.

I know now PPC's cannot boot off of USB drives but what are my other options?

There is a CD in the drive, I tried putting a copy of 10.8.1 from my install on it, to realize there is no getting it out now. (I guess I haven't tried turning it on and holding the eject key)

I don't have a firewire drive available to boot from either. Is there any way to boot off of a network connection? And would I have to buy another copy of 10.8.1 that's compatible with PPC? I know how to change the BIOS on Windows computers to boot in a different order buy I've never had to learn how to do it on Mac.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[Intell]

PowerPC Macs can boot from a USB drive. To get the disc out of the drive, start it up while holding down the option/alt key. You'll be taken to the boot menu. After it's done searching for a bootable drive, press F12 or the eject key and the disc it be ejected. You can boot the Cube via a network. It is called Netbooting and works well if setup correctly. The latest version of Mac OS X it can run is 10.5/Leopard. Anything newer will not work as it all requires an Intell Mac. You're best bet to to locate a copy of retail copy of Leopard or Tiger to install on it. If that Cube still has the stock CPU, Tiger will work better.

 

[mike457]

You should note as well that a Cube, without some modifications to the software or the firmware, cannot read partitions that extend beyond 128GB. The boot partition must be 128GB or less in size. See this discussion. The hard drive must also use the Apple partition map system, not the GUID system that an Intel Mac would use.

 

[California]

My primary computer is a Macbook Pro (late 2011) with Mountain Lion. Recently, I found an old Power Mac (G4?) Cube at my work that had the clicks of death. I happened to have an old 300GB IDE hard drive taken out of an old PC desktop and did the old switcheroo. I did format the old drive (can't remember how) before putting it in the mac.

Now of course when it boots, it shows the little mac icon and a question mark. I'm assuming that this means it can't find an operating system, as should be the case.

I have a 320GB USB Transcend Drive I used to SuperDuper! my MacBook Pro, thinking I could boot the Power Mac with it.

I know now PPC's cannot boot off of USB drives but what are my other options?

There is a CD in the drive, I tried putting a copy of 10.8.1 from my install on it, to realize there is no getting it out now. (I guess I haven't tried turning it on and holding the eject key)

I don't have a firewire drive available to boot from either. Is there any way to boot off of a network connection? And would I have to buy another copy of 10.8.1 that's compatible with PPC? I know how to change the BIOS on Windows computers to boot in a different order buy I've never had to learn how to do it on Mac.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

While it is true what another poster says that the Cube can't read more than 128gbs of HDD natively, you can put a larger hard drive in it. It needs Apple Partition Map not the GUID when you format the IDE drive and like that poster said, you can partition the drive into two drives, one at the 128gb cut off, the other at the 172gb cut off and boot off the first partition. But more importantly you know it won't boot off anything over 10.5.8 OS Leopard. I also am not sure it can boot off USB because I think the Cube only had USB 1.0? (could be wrong, i know the Cube had more powerful usb ports in order to run the Cube speaker and the Apple Cinema Displays of that era. You can never boot off a grey install disc from another mac in the Apple world -- grey install discs are germane to the mac they shipped with.

 

[mike457]

I also am not sure it can boot off USB because I think the Cube only had USB 1.0?

Just to confirm, the Cube's USB ports are indeed only USB 1.

 

[Intell]

Just to confirm, the Cube's USB ports are indeed only USB 1.

Cube's have USB 1.1. The main difference in the Mac world is the 1.1 can boot from USB devices, where USB 1.0 cannot. I've booted my Cube from a USB drive a few times. Not very fast, but it did work.