How do I boot a Sawtooth (AGP) G4 from a USB stick?

[wnlewis]

I have been trying to get my Sawtooth (AGP) G4 to boot from a USB stick.

From the Preferences pane and start up disk option, I choose the USB stick with 10.5.8 on it (the mac has a 1 GHz processor and boots quite happily into 10.5.8 from either an SSD or an HD, it will also boot from a DVD install disk for 10.5.8).

I select the USB stick with 10.5.8, click start, and nothing happens. It just sits there. I can click it all I want and nothing happens. A CD or DVD, an HD or an SSD works perfectly well.

When I use the option key on starting, I get the icon for the USB stick (along with the other drives), click on it and click the arrow to proceed. The little pinwheel goes round and round and then I get the O with the slash through it. Game over. Turn it off and start again.

The USB is in port one on the Mac and not on an add on PCI card.

I understand that it may be possible to get it to boot from a USB stick by pushing Option + Command + F + O and then typing in an explicit path to the USB stick. If that is possible, can someone walk me through it.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[chscag]

PPC machines normally can not be booted from USB. Some users have stated that they could boot a G5 from a Firewire connection, but otherwise I don't believe it's possible to boot a PPC Mac from a USB connection.

 

[r6mile]

I have been trying to get my Sawtooth (AGP) G4 to boot from a USB stick.

From the Preferences pane and start up disk option, I choose the USB stick with 10.5.8 on it (the mac has a 1 GHz processor and boots quite happily into 10.5.8 from either an SSD or an HD, it will also boot from a DVD install disk for 10.5.8).

I select the USB stick with 10.5.8, click start, and nothing happens. It just sits there. I can click it all I want and nothing happens. A CD or DVD, an HD or an SSD works perfectly well.

When I use the option key on starting, I get the icon for the USB stick (along with the other drives), click on it and click the arrow to proceed. The little pinwheel goes round and round and then I get the O with the slash through it. Game over. Turn it off and start again.

The USB is in port one on the Mac and not on an add on PCI card.

I understand that it may be possible to get it to boot from a USB stick by pushing Option + Command + F + O and then typing in an explicit path to the USB stick. If that is possible, can someone walk me through it.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

It is possible and I've done many times on my MDD G4.

1. With the computer on, go on Disk Utility and find out the partition number. Should be under info, something like disk1s3. That last number is the partition number.

2. Boot into OpenFirmware. Type:
dev / ls
To see your list of devices. You should eventually see something like usb19, and under it something like disk@1

3. Type:
devalias
to find the shortcut for the drive. Should be something like usb0 to match what you saw above.

4. And here is the magic. Type:
boot usb0/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi
Where usb0 is your shortcut from step 3, disk@1 is the disk you found in step 2, and 3 is the partition number you found in step 1.

Works reliably in my G4!

 

[wnlewis]

2. Boot into OpenFirmware. Type:
dev / ls
To see your list of devices. You should eventually see something like usb19, and under it something like disk@1

Works reliably in my G4!
[/QUOTE]

When I type in dev / ls the list scrolls by too fast for me to see anything. How do I scroll up in the list and find a particular item?

Disk Utility said that the USB is disk5 and the partition that I need is disk5s5.

Why will devalias find just that USB stick and partition, or do I need to type something in addition to devalias?

Thanks for the help. This is my first real excursion into the open firmware.

 

[gsahli]

devalias displays the shortened alias of all known devices. It doesn't select anything.

 

[wnlewis]

OK. That makes sense. Still, since I don't know how to scroll upwards, and the screen does not display all the results, how do I get back to the top and work my way through either list: dev / ls and devalias?

Thanks.

 

[r6mile]

You shouldn't need to scroll upwards, the list will stop when it fills the screen, and then prompt you to press space (I think) to continue showing the rest of the list. At least that's what happens on mine.

In any case, I think the USB stick will show towards the bottom of the list.

 

[wnlewis]

On my Sawtooth (AGP) G4, both lists go all the way to the bottom of the list (more than filling the screen, I would say probably 2 to 2-1/2 times the vertical space) without stopping in a little less than a second.

There is no prompt to press space to see more; the process completes and does not wait for me or seem to know the size of the screen.

There may be a way to scroll up or down, or there may be a way to stop the initial display process before it goes to the bottom, but I do not know how to do that at this point.

 

[TheShortTimer]

PPC machines normally can not be booted from USB. Some users have stated that they could boot a G5 from a Firewire connection, but otherwise I don't believe it's possible to boot a PPC Mac from a USB connection.

As other posters have detailed, this is simply not the case. On my G3, I installed Tiger via USB and I didn't even need to enter the Open Firmware mode - I just held down the Option key after the Mac chime sounded and 10.4 appeared as a boot option.

 

[r6mile]

On my Sawtooth (AGP) G4, both lists go all the way to the bottom of the list (more than filling the screen, I would say probably 2 to 2-1/2 times the vertical space) without stopping in a little less than a second.

There is no prompt to press space to see more; the process completes and does not wait for me or seem to know the size of the screen.

There may be a way to scroll up or down, or there may be a way to stop the initial display process before it goes to the bottom, but I do not know how to do that at this point.

If you do not see usb0 or usb1 on devalias (because it moves too fast), the only thing I can think of is to just try your luck at different combinations and see if it works. At least you know the partition number, so try:

boot usb0/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi
boot usb1/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi
boot usb2/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi

etc. Hopefully one of them will work.

 

[DearthnVader]

I have been trying to get my Sawtooth (AGP) G4 to boot from a USB stick.

From the Preferences pane and start up disk option, I choose the USB stick with 10.5.8 on it (the mac has a 1 GHz processor and boots quite happily into 10.5.8 from either an SSD or an HD, it will also boot from a DVD install disk for 10.5.8).

I select the USB stick with 10.5.8, click start, and nothing happens. It just sits there. I can click it all I want and nothing happens. A CD or DVD, an HD or an SSD works perfectly well.

When I use the option key on starting, I get the icon for the USB stick (along with the other drives), click on it and click the arrow to proceed. The little pinwheel goes round and round and then I get the O with the slash through it. Game over. Turn it off and start again.

The USB is in port one on the Mac and not on an add on PCI card.

I understand that it may be possible to get it to boot from a USB stick by pushing Option + Command + F + O and then typing in an explicit path to the USB stick. If that is possible, can someone walk me through it.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Booting Leopard from the Sawtooth's USB1.1 ports is going to be very slow, and I'm not sure what the need is if you already have Leopard installed or have a working Leopard install DVD?

The normal use case for booting from a USB stick would be if you had no other means of installing Leopard, such as not having any DL DVD's.

At any rate, it's not clear if you are trying to boot a USB Leopard installer?

I've had issues creating a bootable Leopard install USB, had the same trouble you are having, with the "Stop Sign".

Officially, no PPC Mac can boot from USB, meaning Apple didn't support it, it does however work in most cases with a little Open Firmware magic.

 

[Project Alice]

Booting Leopard from the Sawtooth's USB1.1 ports is going to be very slow, and I'm not sure what the need is if you already have Leopard installed or have a working Leopard install DVD?

The normal use case for booting from a USB stick would be if you had no other means of installing Leopard, such as not having any DL DVD's.

At any rate, it's not clear if you are trying to boot a USB Leopard installer?

I've had issues creating a bootable Leopard install USB, had the same trouble you are having, with the "Stop Sign".

Officially, no PPC Mac can boot from USB, meaning Apple didn't support it, it does however work in most cases with a little Open Firmware magic.

I second this.
I would pull the drive out and stick it in another mac before I ever dreamed of USB booting on USB 1.1. There’s no point to it.

In todays age there’s no excuse to not have a FireWire disk for having a PPC mac hobby. They’re cheap and every PPC Mac with a FW port will boot from one (even the B&W and Yikes! with open firmware coaxing). FW is also fast, and in most cases is faster than using a DVD.

 

[wnlewis]

I am trying to get the Mac to boot from a USB stick, which has not been possible so far. I want to try to do it with an installer that does work from a DVD or a hard drive. Then, if that works, I want to make a live image - on USB - of MintPPC and attempt to use the same technique to boot into Linux.

If the configuration of my Sawtooth (AGP) G4 would help, I can provide that.

In the mean time, I plan to try what R6mile suggested and use some reasonably logical paths to the USB.

 

[eyoungren]

Booting Leopard from the Sawtooth's USB1.1 ports is going to be very slow, and I'm not sure what the need is if you already have Leopard installed or have a working Leopard install DVD?

The normal use case for booting from a USB stick would be if you had no other means of installing Leopard, such as not having any DL DVD's.

At any rate, it's not clear if you are trying to boot a USB Leopard installer?

I've had issues creating a bootable Leopard install USB, had the same trouble you are having, with the "Stop Sign".

Officially, no PPC Mac can boot from USB, meaning Apple didn't support it, it does however work in most cases with a little Open Firmware magic.

I created a system disk once for maintenance/repairs that fit on a 8GB Micro SD card. That card was inside my HTC Touch Pro which was connected to my 17" PowerBook via USB cable.

Using OF I booted and then went out and mowed the lawn. By the time I came back (an hour later) the PB had booted off the Micro SD.

Fun experiment.

 

[Project Alice]

I am trying to get the Mac to boot from a USB stick, which has not been possible so far. I want to try to do it with an installer that does work from a DVD or a hard drive. Then, if that works, I want to make a live image - on USB - of MintPPC and attempt to use the same technique to boot into Linux.

If the configuration of my Sawtooth (AGP) G4 would help, I can provide that.

In the mean time, I plan to try what R6mile suggested and use some reasonably logical paths to the USB.

Why USB though? You’ll probably have better luck getting Linux booting off USB than OS X. I haven’t even gotten Leopard to USB boot on a G4 with USB 2.0, always gives me the “No” symbol. Others have had mixed success.

USB 1.1 has a theoretical max transfer rate of 12mbps, or 1.5MB/s. That is horribly slow. FireWire 400, on the same machine you have is capable of 400mbps or 50MB/s. Very useable. Even if you got it to boot from the USB like you want, it would still be faster to use just about any other method.

 

[bunnspecial]

FWIW, Sawtooths will recognize a bootable USB from Boot Picker(option at startup). This was actually a touted feature at introduction, and was true of most PPC Macs until USB 2.0 came to them(USB 2.0 PPC Macs will usually need to use OF to boot from USB). As others have said, it's SLOWWWW. I've often speculated(can't back this up) that Apple wanted to promote the use of Firewire, which was their technology, which is why USB booting became more difficult when they started shipping Macs with USB comparable in speed to FW400.
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PPC machines normally can not be booted from USB. Some users have stated that they could boot a G5 from a Firewire connection, but otherwise I don't believe it's possible to boot a PPC Mac from a USB connection.

Can this myth please die?

The only Macs with built in USB that I know of that can't be USB booted are the very early ones with pre-AGP graphics.

FW booting was and is extremely simple on all Macs with AGP graphics and newer.

 

[Project Alice]

FWIW, Sawtooths will recognize a bootable USB from Boot Picker(option at startup). This was actually a touted feature at introduction, and was true of most PPC Macs until USB 2.0 came to them(USB 2.0 PPC Macs will usually need to use OF to boot from USB).

I’ve never in my life seen any PPC Mac show USB at the boot picker. Granted I’ve never attempted it on a sawtooth, I have on an iBook G3.

 

[wnlewis]

The method to live boot MintPPC uses one USB stick to live boot, and then a second USB stick to do the install.

So I need to find out how to make this work; it hasn't to this point.

 

[wnlewis]

What I get from disk utility is: disk4s5
What I get from dev / ls is: /usb@8
/disk@1
What I get from devalias is: usb0 /pci@f2000000/@d/usb@8

The USB stick is on the PCI card. I can't see the other USB stick on either dev / ls or devalias, because the information is above the top of what's visible on the screen.

 

[r6mile]

As your shortcut on devalias is usb0, and the disk is 1, and the partition is 5, you should type:

boot usb0/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi

let us know if it works!

PS: As others have said, be very patient. USB 1.1 is sloooooow

 

[TheShortTimer]

I’ve never in my life seen any PPC Mac show USB at the boot picker. Granted I’ve never attempted it on a sawtooth, I have on an iBook G3.

As I wrote earlier, my iBook G3 displays Mac OS X as a bootable option via USB by holding down Option. It's with Linux that I have to use Open Firmware in order for it to boot from USB...

 

[Project Alice]

As I wrote earlier, my iBook G3 displays Mac OS X as a bootable option via USB by holding down Option. It's with Linux that I have to use Open Firmware in order for it to boot from USB...

Like I said earlier, I’ve never had USB, including OS X show up in the picker on a PPC Mac. OS X actually what I tried booting.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’ve never seen that before nor seen anyone mention it online before now. I haven’t tried booting OS X from USB in years, except on an iBook G4 more recently. It gave me the ‘ol No symbol.
Nonetheless if I’m booting on a PPC Mac, I’m not going to waste my time with USB. Even on USB 2.0 mac, FW400 is just better.

 

[wnlewis]

Thank you to R6mile! The suggested method worked!

I held down the Command + Option + P + R keys and let the computer chime twice. Then I immediately released the P + R and pushed the O + F keys. This computer has to have the PRAM zapped before it will go into Open Firmware.

When the open firmware screen came up I typed in: boot usb0/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi

Within about 30 seconds I got the Apple logo, and then the pinwheel.

It took about 2 to 3 minutes to get to the screen with the drives showing.

The installation screen for 10.5.6 got displayed and I selected English.

The next screen gave me the disk utility option. I chose that and went back to the normal startup drive.

The USB was in the first port on the add-in PCI card that provides two PCI and two Firewire ports.

If I can get both USB sticks to go into the ports on the PCI card - very tight spacing - I should be able to boot into MintPPC using the installation instructions for that version (32 bit) of Debian Linux.

I had thought about taking out my add in cards in order to be able to see the entire lists provided by dev / ls and devalias. Being able to go to the top of the list and scroll up or down is still something I need to find out how to do.

However, success! If need be, I can probably take off the cases for the USB sticks to get them to fit. Any thoughts on that? Are there USB sticks with thin cases?

Thanks to everyone who has helped.

 

[r6mile]

Thank you to R6mile! The suggested method worked!

I held down the Command + Option + P + R keys and let the computer chime twice. Then I immediately released the P + R and pushed the O + F keys. This computer has to have the PRAM zapped before it will go into Open Firmware.

When the open firmware screen came up I typed in: boot usb0/disk@1:5,\\:tbxi

Within about 30 seconds I got the Apple logo, and then the pinwheel.

It took about 2 to 3 minutes to get to the screen with the drives showing.

The installation screen for 10.5.6 got displayed and I selected English.

The next screen gave me the disk utility option. I chose that and went back to the normal startup drive.

The USB was in the first port on the add-in PCI card that provides two PCI and two Firewire ports.

If I can get both USB sticks to go into the ports on the PCI card - very tight spacing - I should be able to boot into MintPPC using the installation instructions for that version (32 bit) of Debian Linux.

I had thought about taking out my add in cards in order to be able to see the entire lists provided by dev / ls and devalias. Being able to go to the top of the list and scroll up or down is still something I need to find out how to do.

However, success! If need be, I can probably take off the cases for the USB sticks to get them to fit. Any thoughts on that? Are there USB sticks with thin cases?

Thanks to everyone who has helped.

Nice, well done!

For the dev / ls and devalias, maybe you could just record it on your phone and see if you could 'rewind' and see the text? A bit primitive but if you have a good camera it might work.

For USB stick, I use this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-T...on+datatraveler+usb+3.0&qid=1594931313&sr=8-7 - it's probably as thin as any USB stick could be. However I seem to have broken mine now so need to get another one...
Get a USB 3.0 one so at least you can also use it properly with a modern computer!

 

[AphoticD]

For the dev / ls and devalias, maybe you could just record it on your phone and see if you could 'rewind' and see the text? A bit primitive but if you have a good camera it might work.

There is also the option to control a PowerPC Mac's Open Firmware session from another Mac/PC over ethernet via a telnet session. You then get full access to the text buffer and copy/paste.

See details in this post here:

Testing FCode roms before you flash.

Great work! This is a very valuable contribution. It is definitely worth mentioning the telnet option to save the need to obtain a PCI graphics card for the process. First plugin an Ethernet cable to the target machine, reboot into Open Firmware and at the OF prompt setup the telnet I/O device...

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