Can't boot from FireWire drive

[!!!]

For a "project" I'm working on I'd like to install a copy of Mac OS onto my external FireWire HDD, and boot from it. I've done the first step, installing Mac OS, numerous times. I've tried Mac OS 9 (and yes, it has the Mac OS 9 drivers), 10.1, 10.3, and 10.5. On both my eMac and iMac G4. None of it boots.

The drive is a FW800, 1TB, and I'm using an 800-400 cable. I've tried using a smaller partition, enabling/disabling OS 9 drivers for OSX installs, different install discs (all of which work when installed to the internal disk, of course).

Anyone have a clue what's going wrong? Is there something that I'm missing? I've thought maybe it's the fact that it's a 1TB drive, or maybe that it's a FW800 drive, but I can't find any info online that actually confirms this.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

It’s need to be formatted for Master Boot Record.

Edit: Oops. I guess I’m wrong. Read below.

 

[Doq]

No no, it has to be Apple Partition Map, especially if booting Mac OS 9.

It sounds like everything you've tried is correct and by the book. I'd also suspect it's the size of the drive. Older Open Firmwares won't even go near a drive larger than 128GiB, so it might see that the disk is way larger and balk at trying-- something you wouldn't notice once booted into Mac OS as it takes over.

 

[joevt]

Disabling OS 9 drivers is not required for OS X since OS X does not use them at all.

FireWire booting should work with any Mac that has Open Firmware 3.2.4f1 or later (not 3.1.3f3 or earlier). Not sure about in-between (need ROM dumps for those).

I don't know what the Open Firmware limits are for FireWire or USB or SCSI drives.

For IDE drives:
All Macs with Open Firmware versions that support IDE are supposed to support LBA28 but early versions have a LBA detection bug which makes them use CHS instead.

LBA28 is fixed in Open Firmware 3.2.4f1 and later. It is also fixed in these:

• 3.1.1f4 B&W G3
• 3.1.2f2 G4 Yikes

3.1.0f1 PowerBook G3 Lombard has two ATA drivers.
LBA detection is correct for ata-disk package (used for ata-3/disk devices where ata-3 is a heathrow-ata compatible device) (similar to B&W G3, Yikes)
LBA detection is not correct for pci104c,ac1a (Texas Instruments PCI1210) or pci104c,ac1e (Texas Instruments) PCI1211 CardBus bridges.

These versions have incorrect lba detection:

• 2.0a9 Power Express (9700 Prototype)
• 2.3 Power Express (9700 Prototype)
• 2.4 Beige G3 rev C
• 2.4 Beige G3 rev D
• 3.1.3f2 iMac (233 MHz) Bondi Blue
• 3.1.3f2 iMac (266,333 MHz)

I didn't check other versions of Open Firmware that declare words as headerless (unnamed).

CHS means being limited to 7.87 GiB if the HD reports a CHS limit of 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track = 16514064 blocks (ATA BIOS limit).
CHS limit is 127.5 GiB if the HD has CHS values 65535/16/255 (not likely?)
LBA28 is 28-bit (128 GiB).
4.3.2f1 adds 48-bit LBA48 support.
LBA48 is limited to 32-bits in Open Firmware because the block number is limited to 32-bits for read and write words. That's a limit of 2 TiB.

I have a small patch that fits in nvramrc to fix LBA28 detection for Open Firmware 2.4.

Adding LBA48 support requires swapping out the entire IDE driver in Open Firmware. My Open Firmware Extender for Open Firmware 2.4 does that (and adds other utilities and fixes or adds HFS, HFS+, GPT support, etc.). Open Firmware Extender is loaded by nvramrc from disk.

 

[!!!]

It sounds like everything you've tried is correct and by the book. I'd also suspect it's the size of the drive. Older Open Firmwares won't even go near a drive larger than 128GiB, so it might see that the disk is way larger and balk at trying-- something you wouldn't notice once booted into Mac OS as it takes over.

Thanks. Do you know if it's possible to fool it into accepting a larger disk if the partition map is under that limit? Edit: no, this does not seem to work.

---

@joevt Thanks for your comment, it sounds interesting.

As far as i can tell, me firmware version is 4.42f1.

I have a small patch that fits in nvramrc to fix LBA28 detection for Open Firmware 2.4.

Adding LBA48 support requires swapping out the entire IDE driver in Open Firmware. My Open Firmware Extender for Open Firmware 2.4 does that (and adds other utilities and fixes or adds HFS, HFS+, GPT support, etc.). Open Firmware Extender is loaded by nvramrc from disk.

Is this something you're willing to share, or do you have anything actionable for me?

 

[joevt]

As far as i can tell, me firmware version is 4.42f1.

I don't have that version. Can you grab a dump to examine?
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...eige-power-macintosh-g3.2303689/post-33883037
The dump will include info about your Mac model.

I don't think it should have a problem with drives greater than 128 MB since FireWire and USB don't use CHS. You have a version of Open Firmware that has LBA48 support for IDE drives.

There maybe a firmware updater for your Mac.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/powerpc-mac-firmware-boot-rom-updates.2285855/
Even if there isn't one specifically for your model, it is possible to run a firmware updater for other models since each firmware updater includes info for several Mac models. Though I wouldn't try it without a method to reflash the original firmware if something goes wrong.

Is this something you're willing to share, or do you have anything actionable for me?

It's basically for Old World Macs. Maybe I'll update it for the original New World Macs like my B&W G3.
All the code and discussion about it or on the DingusPPC discord (search for Open Firmware Extender)
You might find the list-partitions command useful so you can list partitions from Open Firmware.

Then try the multi-boot-menu command.
https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/updat...om-usb-from-the-boot-picker.48601/post-577228

Maybe you can gather and post info about your drive using the dumpvols.sh script at
https://gist.github.com/joevt/a99e3af71343d8242e0078ab4af39b6c

 

[Project Alice]

For a "project" I'm working on I'd like to install a copy of Mac OS onto my external FireWire HDD, and boot from it. I've done the first step, installing Mac OS, numerous times. I've tried Mac OS 9 (and yes, it has the Mac OS 9 drivers), 10.1, 10.3, and 10.5. On both my eMac and iMac G4. None of it boots.

The drive is a FW800, 1TB, and I'm using an 800-400 cable. I've tried using a smaller partition, enabling/disabling OS 9 drivers for OSX installs, different install discs (all of which work when installed to the internal disk, of course).

Anyone have a clue what's going wrong? Is there something that I'm missing? I've thought maybe it's the fact that it's a 1TB drive, or maybe that it's a FW800 drive, but I can't find any info online that actually confirms this.

What is the make and model of the enclosure?

Out of all my years doing this, I have come across enclosures that simply don't work right for booting PPC Macs. I have absolutely no idea why, other than a purposely designed firmware fault in the enclosure. Specifically, this enclosure does not boot any of my PPC Macs. Note that the one linked seems to have been updated, removing FireWire altogether (though it still references it in the article), but the one I have includes both USB 3 and FW800.

Edit: I want to add that when I purchashed it, my main purpose was for booting PPC Macs. It was purchased somewhere around 2018 I want to say. I ended up starting an RMA with OWC, and that lead to a discussion with them. They told me that they "do not support" PowerPC Macs, or Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5. Which is why I said I feel it's an intentional firmware block. The drive works fine for everything but booting, and it also boots all of my x86 Macs.
For the past 5 years its actually served as a boot drive for TrueNAS on my Mac Pro 4,1>5,1 NAS.

 

[!!!]

What is the make and model of the enclosure?

It's an old WD Passport, from 2012 probably. I've also discovered that no other HDD works in the enclosure, at least none that I've tried.

 

[Project Alice]

It's an old WD Passport, from 2012 probably. I've also discovered that no other HDD works in the enclosure, at least none that I've tried.

That might have something to do with it. Those are terrible. WD Passports have some type of encryption in the enclosure's firmware. It renders the HDD inside useless (unless reformatted) when moved outside of the enclosure, and it more than likely requires a matching drive or S/N for using a drive in it.
If I were you, I would order a random 2.5" SATA enclosure with FW from eBay, and stick a cheap SSD in it.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Im a huge fan of the Hitachi mini G Drives. Ive got a couple, they're small, solid i/o options, they're powered through fw800 and the fit and finish is awesome. Plus, if you want, you can totally stick a high capacity SSD in there without bricking it which is what Ive done with both of mine as I picked mine up real cheap due to small capacity drives. The linked one however has a pretty decent 750gb drive in it already.

G-Technology G-Drive Mini 0G02131 750GB External Drive 7200 RPM GDM4 750 X NA | eBay

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Not my auction but an excellent example of what I'm talking about and Good luck 🙂

 

[!!!]

It renders the HDD inside useless (unless reformatted) when moved outside of the enclosure

Yes, I experienced that as well.

If I were you, I would order a random 2.5" SATA enclosure with FW from eBay, and stick a cheap SSD in it.

The idea was to do this with parts I already had lying around, since I found my FW800-400 cable. No worries though, I was able to add another partition to my eMac and do the separate install on there. Hopefully I can transplant that partition later on.