My Powerbook's (G4 15" 1.33 ghz running Tiger) hard drive has finally FAILED. I knew it was coming..I have everything backed up on an external firewire drive. My powerbook finally refused to boot up completely today. I already ordered a new hard drive from iFixit and I plan to install it myself.
Thing is I don't know how to reboot using my firewire drive or whether it is possible now.Can I do it eventhough my internal HD has failed?
thanks in advance for advice.
hold down the "option" key once you hear the chime. A selector will come up and you can select the drive you want to boot. if you don't see the icon come up, then the FW drive doesn't have a proper OS.
What you would do then, would be to take your PB's Tiger disc, and do an archived install onto the FW Drive. that should get you up and running
... Of course, everything coius said depends on the FW enclosure being bootable.
I've come across a few that simply cannot be booted off of, due to an oddball chipset, or whatever.
Thanks for the replies.
I made my FW HD bootable with Super Duper so once I knew what button to press, booting from the drive was no problem!.
Thanks
Be aware, so that if it happens you are not desolate, that using SuperDuper! to make its Smart Backup bootable does not ensure that this will happen. The drive enclosure's bridge board must include the Oxford bridge chip 911 or 912, and not the Prolific bridge. The contribution of SuperDuper! is important, but it is not enough without the bridge chip.
Many/most aftermarket enclosures from Asia use the Prolific chip. The Oxford chip is used by LaCie, perhaps among many others, but those 'others' do not include the Asian makers.
de