Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Fan 2008

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 17, 2021
1,541
3,801
Florida, USA 🇺🇸
I have an original TiBook (2001 400mhz model) I tried going into open firmware to force it to boot to USB, it didn't work. Did I do it wrong or is it not possible on a 2001 TiBook?
 
On that model, you do not need to use OpenFirmware. Simply insert the USB drive and boot the machine while holding Option/Alt and the USB drive will appear for you to boot from. If it does not, make sure the USB drive is properly formatted with HFS+ and contains a bootable installation of Mac OS X. You may need to try different USB drives as well, not all are able to be booted on a PowerPC Mac
 
Also be sure to format the USB drive partition table as APM (Apple Partition Map). MBR or GUID/GPT won’t be bootable.

I’ve forgotten this step before and left scratching my head wondering why the USB didn’t show up in OF. Also, some USB devices just won’t be visible in Open Firmware (but appear fine once booted) - try a different / older USB drive.
 
Now it’ll boot…. And crash. I’m also running the public beta installer so maybe that’s why
You mean the original OS X beta? That's why. It will not run on this machine, that beta is only designed for Year 2000 and older Mac models. You'd need to have the computer's clock set to a date before May 15, 2001 at minimum to try booting it, and even then as I said it never was issued for the G4 PowerBook. Whether someone somewhere kludged it to work or not, I can't find any info on.

Edit: Even further, it won't work from FireWire or a USB stick anyway apparently, another thread here details this:
  • You cannot install this release of Mac OS X on a FireWire or USB disk. This release of Mac OS X provides limited support for FireWire hard disks. While you cannot use a FireWire disk as your Mac OS X startup disk, you can store documents on a FireWire disk.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Amethyst1
You mean the original OS X beta? That's why. It will not run on this machine, that beta is only designed for Year 2000 and older Mac models. You'd need to have the computer's clock set to a date before May 15, 2001 at minimum to try booting it, and even then as I said it never was issued for the G4 PowerBook. Whether someone somewhere kludged it to work or not, I can't find any info on.

Edit: Even further, it won't work from FireWire or a USB stick anyway apparently, another thread here details this:
  • You cannot install this release of Mac OS X on a FireWire or USB disk. This release of Mac OS X provides limited support for FireWire hard disks. While you cannot use a FireWire disk as your Mac OS X startup disk, you can store documents on a FireWire disk.
Ok 👌 thx
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.