Can I reboot from an USB2 ext HD.

[Fishtalk]

Ok so my old FW Mac died.... Have to buy a new one.
Problem is that all my back up is on a Iomega miniMax Ext HD that I backed up and cloned my old HD. Via FireWire. I've noticed that the new Macbook ONLY has USB 2. Will my EXT HHD still work.( It does have a USB2 connection). Obviously I wont want to be using my old OS ( Panther) But I do have quite a few app.s that I'd like to transfer to the new OS
Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes, it will work, but you will not be able to boot from the external HDD, as the OS stored there is too old for the MacBook.

Your old Mac (what Mac, FW Mac is not specific?) had Mac OS X 10.3.x on it, your new MacBook either has Mac OS X 10.5.x or Mac OS X 10.6.x on it, and as the MacBook is using an Intel CPU (x86 architecture) and Mac OS X 10.3.x was written for IBM CPUs (PPC architecture), the OS from the old Mac is not compatible with the new Mac.
Also there is the obstacle, that Macs can only use the Mac OS X version and up they came with. Example: Mac came with 10.6.3 --> you cant install or use Mac OS X 10.6.2 and lower to boot that Mac.

And another thing to add: Mac OS X 10.3 is quite old, thus many applications might not work on the OS you use on your MacBook.