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

Booting From USB Running Tiger with Powermac G4

H

htg

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 2, 2009
125
0
Here's the situation: I've just bought 5 PowerMac G4s off eBay, none of which come with hard drives but they come with everything else. I'm trying to find a cheap way I can use them and test them temporarily with an OS without going out to buy 4 hard drives (the other Mac I'm using for something else).

I was thinking if I go and buy four 16GB USB sticks and install Tiger on them, would I be able to boot from them with no HD? Does PowerPC support that? I read somewhere that you can only boot from Firewire devices with PowerPCs, so I'm not sure.

If it can be done (which would be awesome!), I would also like to know how (obviously!).

Thanks.
 
As said, it can be done, but I wouldn't recommend it.

If your goal is to test them, it's easy enough to just buy one hard drive, install an OS on it, and then boot them up one at a time with that drive in order to make sure they work. Then get the hard drives for the ones that work for permanent use.

Incidentally, simsaladimbamba, while USB booting is definitely slower than a good internal hard drive in many cases, I've found it's quite useable most of the time. I regularly boot off a flash drive for diagnostic purposes, usually into either the Mac OS X Installer or DiskWarrior, but I've booted into a full OS too, and it's really not bad. When I compare to booting off a DVD to install an OS (obviously a different scenario than here), it's night and day difference in speed.

jW
 
Mal said:
As said, it can be done, but I wouldn't recommend it.

If your goal is to test them, it's easy enough to just buy one hard drive, install an OS on it, and then boot them up one at a time with that drive in order to make sure they work. Then get the hard drives for the ones that work for permanent use.

Incidentally, simsaladimbamba, while USB booting is definitely slower than a good internal hard drive in many cases, I've found it's quite useable most of the time. I regularly boot off a flash drive for diagnostic purposes, usually into either the Mac OS X Installer or DiskWarrior, but I've booted into a full OS too, and it's really not bad. When I compare to booting off a DVD to install an OS (obviously a different scenario than here), it's night and day difference in speed.

jW
Click to expand...

Good point. I think that's what I'll do. Could somebody do me favour and confirm whether this hard drive would work? I'm 90% sure it will, but I just want to check. Also, does the fact that it is 2.5 inches instead of 3.5 inches make a difference?
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Mal said:
Incidentally, simsaladimbamba, while USB booting is definitely slower than a good internal hard drive in many cases, I've found it's quite useable most of the time. I regularly boot off a flash drive for diagnostic purposes, usually into either the Mac OS X Installer or DiskWarrior, but I've booted into a full OS too, and it's really not bad. When I compare to booting off a DVD to install an OS (obviously a different scenario than here), it's night and day difference in speed.

jW
Click to expand...

I know, that CDs and DVDs are slower, my Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard installer is on USB HDD, thus reinstalls are pretty fast.

But running an OS from a slow USB flash memory thumb drive ca be a pain, as many of the cheap USB flash memory thumb drives are quite slow, I once had one with 2 MB/s write speeds and 10 MB/s read speeds. Of course there are faster ones out there.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
2.5" IDE and 3.5" IDE are not identical, like 2.5" SATA and 3.5" SATA. It needs to be a 3.5" IDE drive. The connectors are physically different, plus power is not carried through the IDE connector for the 3.5" drives, but is for 2.5" drives (hence no Molex power connector).

EDIT: There are adaptors if you already have the drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012

jW
 
Mal said:
2.5" IDE and 3.5" IDE are not identical, like 2.5" SATA and 3.5" SATA. It needs to be a 3.5" IDE drive. The connectors are physically different, plus power is not carried through the IDE connector for the 3.5" drives, but is for 2.5" drives (hence no Molex power connector).

EDIT: There are adaptors if you already have the drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012

jW
Click to expand...

No, I haven't yet bought anything. I'll go ahead and buy the one you recommended though. Looks good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back