Booting from CF/PCMCIA in NewWorld macs

#1 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 - 14:08

I can't for the life of me figure out how to boot from a CF card either in a PCMCIA adaptor or using a USB adaptor. I can hold down option and see the main volume but the CF card formatted HFS+ cant be seen. Its blessed but just wont boot. Any ideas?

#2 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 - 21:11

Odd, but have you tried altering startup disk via Control Panel settings?

#3 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 - 21:21

Which Mac, specifically? Many, but not all, NewWorld Macs can boot from USB. The BlueWhite G3 and the colored iBooks, tray-loading iMacs, and at least the PCI Graphics ("Yikes!") PowerMac G4 are unable to boot from USB. At all.

#4 Thu, 2 Aug 2012 - 06:02

Are you sure? I thought there was no USB booting until Intel processors? You could boot from FireWire, but not USB.

#5 Thu, 2 Aug 2012 - 16:32

Some Power Macs *can* boot from USB, under specific conditions:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20101011105729488

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/powerpc/ch05s01.html

However, Apple never officially supported it.

#6 Thu, 2 Aug 2012 - 17:01

Here's my experience booting from usb on a NewWorld Mac. On my pismo about 6 years ago, my dvd drive went out. Then I somehow broke my OSX install, I don't remember how. I was not able to use an external USB cd rom to boot into OSX. (Probably Panther or Tiger). I was however able to boot into OS9 and install it. That's my two cents on the issue.

#7 Thu, 2 Aug 2012 - 18:43

I have no trouble booting a Pismo from a PC card/CF drive in OS9....

Is this the early PB G4 mentioned in another thread?

#8 Fri, 3 Aug 2012 - 06:47

Some Power Macs *can* boot from USB, under specific conditions

Nice. OpenFirmware to the rescue. I'll file that trick away in the back of my brain.