Will a hard drive from my PowerBook work with an iMac G3?

[JCLrox]

I took the hard drive out of my PowerBook G4 (2004) and I'm thinking of getting an enclosure for it and using it as an external drive for my iMac G3. Will this drive work with my iMac?

 

[zen.state]

I took the hard drive out of my PowerBook G4 (2004) and I'm thinking of getting an enclosure for it and using it as an external drive for my iMac G3. Will this drive work with my iMac?

It will work fine but keep in mind that an imac G3 has USB 1.1 which equals a 500-800KB/sec transfer rate in the real world. Fine for documents and music but thats about it.

 

[AdrianK]

Alternatively you could get a FireWire 400 enclosure, should you need higher bandwidth than zen.state mentioned.

EDIT: Just noticed that not all iMac G3s have FW.

 

[JCLrox]

That's great, thank you! I will be able to boot off of the drive, right?

 

[Intell]

That's great, thank you! I will be able to boot off of the drive, right?

Yes, but only on the slot loading G3 iMacs. It may fuss at first, but it'll be able to boot from it. Also remember, it will be very, very slow over USB.

 

[JCLrox]

It's a slot loader, so I'm in luck! Thanks again!

 

[justperry]

That's great, thank you! I will be able to boot off of the drive, right?

Firewire yes, USB no

I never been able to boot of a external on My G3 and G4 systems.

 

[Intell]

Firewire yes, USB no

I never been able to boot of a external on My G3 and G4 systems.

PowerPC Macs starting with the slot loading G3 iMac can startup from a USB device. Even Apple states it as possible: https://support.apple.com/kb/TA25908

Second paragraph:

Beginning with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and the iMac (Slot-Loading), two new features to USB are most apparent: support for USB audio devices and booting from USB drives.

 

[666sheep]

Firewire yes, USB no

I never been able to boot of a external on My G3 and G4 systems.

So you can speak for yourself only 😉

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

I tend to differ on this subject. Using open firmware and the following:

boot ud:,\\:tbxi - I am able to boot off my external USB superdrive and also other USB devices and strange enough it does boot rather quick on my end. I have also successfully booted from USB flash drives using this command.

The only drawback is that when you hold down OPTION at start up, the boot manager doesn't bring up the USB device - This is probably where some think the PPC's can't boot off USB, but using the open firmware command above will show that it does indeed work.

I have tested this on a G5 Quad, PowerBook G4 Pismo(yes, it is a G4 thanks to the 550 Wegener upgrade), and currently using a flash drive to boot Leopard on my G4 PowerBook 1.67.

There are a lot of websites on how to boot a PowerPC mac using a USB 2.0 drive.

So you can speak for yourself only 😉

 

[Intell]

The only drawback is that when you hold down OPTION at start up, the boot manager doesn't bring up the USB device - This is probably where some think the PPC's can't boot off USB, but using the open firmware command above will show that it does indeed work.

The Startup pref pane will also see a USB drive and select it as the bootable drive. When restarting the Mac, it'll boot from it.