Mac Mini G4 - USB boot leopard

[Project Alice]

Hi all,
I'm trying to install Leopard Server on my Mac Mini G4, Via USB. I don't have any DL-DVDs right now, and if I did, according to system profiler this Mini only has a CD-RW drive (which is weird because according to everymac, these minis only came with a DVD drive).
After booting the drive with open firmware I get the wonderful "no" symbol.



I created the drive first using carbon copy cloner, and then with Disk Utilities restore function (on High Sierra, which is why I used CCC first). Both give me this same outcome.

 

[AL1630]

If you can, I would try Target Disk Mode. It's worked pretty well for me when a PPC won't boot off a usb stick.

 

[Project Alice]

If you can, I would try Target Disk Mode. It's worked pretty well for me when a PPC won't boot off a usb stick.

That won't help because I need to boot from the installation media in some manner. I still don't have any DL DVDs to put the leopard installer on. Worst case scenario I'll put it on a random 2.5" HDD I have laying around and throw it in my FW enclosure.

 

[AL1630]

The Firewire method I used involves partitioning the hard drive, copying the installer onto one partition, then booting off of it and installing on the other partition. Using an enclosure is probably easier than that though.

 

[Project Alice]

The Firewire method I used involves partitioning the hard drive, copying the installer onto one partition, then booting off of it and installing on the other partition. Using an enclosure is probably easier than that though.

Oh, yeah I suppose that would work. I'll probably just end up using a hard drive. USB just seemed like a good idea since I have a drawer full of flash drives and G4's are supposedly bootable from USB.

 

[Project Alice]

I ended up just using another FW drive.

Still though, is there any reason why USB wasn't working?

 

[nglevin]

Open Firmware booting off of USB has never been officially supported on PPC. Target Disk Mode via SCSI and FW were supported, depending on the Mac.

You didn't say exactly how you tried booting off USB with OF, but IIRC it requires some arcane OF commands. Even then there's no guarantee that it will work from one version of OF that shipped on a PPC Mac to the other.

 

[mikehalloran]

[doublepost=1540732144][/doublepost]

Still though, is there any reason why USB wasn't working?

It's not supported.

PPCs boot from Firewire. Intel Macs boot from USB.

You don't say which G4 you have but it needs to be an 867 to run 10.5 at all. I have a 1.2 twin core and found Leopard too slow to be of any use so I went back to 10.4.11.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Minis can be booted from USB for sure, wether that applies for any version of OSX is another question.....

 

[Project Alice]

[doublepost=1540732144][/doublepost]It's not supported.

PPCs boot from Firewire. Intel Macs boot from USB.

You don't say which G4 you have but it needs to be an 867 to run 10.5 at all. I have a 1.2 twin core and found Leopard too slow to be of any use so I went back to 10.4.11.

PPC Macs, most G4s and all G5s CAN be booted from USB via open firmware. It isn't supported, but it usually works. I've done it a few times, usually with linux.

And yes, my original post DOES say which G4 (should I also mention the title of this thread?), its a Mac mini. They were only made with a 1.25ghz up to 1.5ghz. Mines a 1.5. Also, 10.5 runs on ANY G4. With a little coxing to the installer. Or just clone a working install to an unsupported G4. It runs on my dual 450Mhz sawtooth, and single 500mhz just fine. Tiger really isn't that much faster on any PPC Mac in my opinion.