Can a USB hard drive be used to install Leopard?

[MatthewLTL]

Anybody else ever notice that Carbon Copy Cloner pops up a warning about "Not being bootable" when you start to clone a PPC system over USB?

Yes. I even got that cloning my MDDs Leopard install to another HDD to put in my eMac but the drive boots just fine.

 

[Intell]

my eMac is USB2 and it boots USB via option key.... my MDD will boot OFF THE USB2 card using the option as well. Makes me wonder why it would work on a USB2 eMac and not a iBook G4.

USB 2 eMacs are not able to boot from a USB device while holding down option. I have personally tested this on both USB 2 equipped eMacs.

Anybody else ever notice that Carbon Copy Cloner pops up a warning about "Not being bootable" when you start to clone a PPC system over USB?

Yes, this is a source for much of the misconception that PowerPC Macs are unable to boot from a USB drive.

 

[bunnspecial]

Anybody else ever notice that Carbon Copy Cloner pops up a warning about "Not being bootable" when you start to clone a PPC system over USB?

I've done a lot of things that CCC claims won't be bootable, although fortunately you can ignore the warnings provided that you know what you're doing.

The USB one bugs me, since it's not universally true and most of the time when I do it I'm just using USB in an external enclosure so that I can clone the drive and then put it in another computer.

It really gets in a tizzy when you're cloning an APM volume to a GUID volume over USB(or vice versa), but again will do it anyway. The only time I've really done this is as a proof of concept.

 

[Intell]

Another thing CCC complains about not being possible is booting a Mac from a disk image stored on said Mac.

 

[cammykool]

You keep repeating this, but it's not universally true.

The Option key does not work for USB booting on the majority of USB 2.0 PPC Macs. This includes iBook G4s, Aluminum Powerbooks, and G5s. It's a bad idea to make broad, sweeping generalizations when you're basing them on your experience with two computers with designs from the USB 1.1 era.

Believe it or not, I have my fair share of G5s, iBook G4s, and Albooks. I wouldn't mess with USB booting through open firmware if I didn't have to. I do it, though, because it's the only way.

Maybe im confused.. but i have an aluminum powerbook G4...

 

[tom vilsack]

I have both Leopard Installer and a SuperDuper (links to leopard or tiger version dl) restore image (clean install,all updates) on a Lexar Platinum II 16gb SDHC card. (which I use with a simple dollar store sd card reader to usb stick)

 

[PlutoDelic]

http://lifedigital2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/how-to-install-mac-osx-from-usb-on-powerbook-g4/

As i said, i did everything as your link says, it is the same method spread all over, i see no Disk under my USB, no matter the port.

You say you have no optical drive but you copied Leopard to a USB drive. I assume you cloned an existing Leopard installation from another Mac with no optical drive. If you can boot your other Mac from the USB drive then the fault is not with the USB drive. This should be easy to test.

Actually no, it is an archived 10.5.6 DMG i have had for quite a while, which also worked on a lot of G5 i had to deal with. The G4 PowerBook has a drive, but it's nuked.

I did manage to get past the problem by having a different USB which had 10.5.8 ready (a friend from a retail shop), this makes me conclude that the thumb-drive i used didnt work due to being USB 3.0.