Cannot use Western Digital Passport Drive as a Startup Volume

[brownieking]

I recently purchased a Western Digital Passport 160gb external USB hard drive from Costco. I reformatted as Mac OS (Journaled) but the System Install DVD will not let me install Mac OS X on the drive. It says that the drive cannot be used as a startup volume. I need to use it for a maintenance drive so it must be able to be a startup volume. If not, I'll have to return it.

Any suggestions?

(Also still can't launch iLife applications on my internal drive - see my earlier post if you can help.)

Thanks!
David

 

[starfox101]

not checking my facts to be sure, but I think you must have a firewire drive to boot. I have a wd 320 mybook, boots just fine.

 

[brownieking]

I did a little searching and I think you're right. You need to use firewire to boot externally. I found a LaCie 160gb mobile drive with firewire 400 for $200 that I'm going to purchase. I have the 80gb version but didn't know they came out with the 160gb. It's a pretty slick drive. Super small and very portable.

Thanks!

 

[weldon]

The Intel Macs can boot off USB, but G5 and older need firewire (or SCSI if you go that far back).

 

[Locolako]

I know this thread is a little dated but I had a quick question

Can you power the drive right off of usb?

I noticed you had to buy another cable or something for some computers and was just wondering if you had to do that?

I will be getting a macbook so I would like to know if the usb ports can do it


thank you