eSATA-expresscard boot with MBP?

[kite]

It's possible to boot both OS X and XP from USB-stick so I thought SATA II ExpressCard 34 would boot nice too, but it does not on my MBP.

The expresscard uses the SiI3132 driver.
I'm trying to get this to boot OS X, or at least XP, without success.
While using the OS X install-disk 1, I see no external SATA drives, and inside OS X the disks is reported as SCSI-disks on "SCSI Parallel Domain 0".

How do I make eSATA-disks to show up as selectable targets for OS X install?

Since OS X installs fine on my external FW400-drive, but not allow bootcamp on it, I guess I maybe get the same problem with a eSATA drive. If so:
How do I install XP on external harddrive, not USB?

 

[CanadaRAM]

No eSATA ExpressCard adaptor that I am aware of is capable of booting OSX or BootCamp. Unless there is a hack, BootCamp must be installed on a drive attached to the motherboard's SATA controller.

I think, unless someone has a link to a major skunkworks workaround the answer is: You can't.

 

[kite]

That sounds so sad. Lets hope there is a workaround to be found somehow.

 

[EvryDayImShufln]

Seriously, if this cannot be done it almost ruins the point of having eSATA. I was planning on running XP to game on eSATA eventually because it's so much faster.

 

[kite]

I agree, thats a shame!

A less funky option might be to create different OS's for "stationary"-use and "on the go"-use.
The "On the go" have "everything else" on the faster external drive; programs, files, swap-partition.
This leaves the MBP with some space loss due to having 6 partitions then, two with complete installs, two with swap/pagefile, and two with just the slimed OS only.
That hurts when my internal disk is just 80GB :/

Would'nt this give a bit better performance? Better than the internal at least?

For sure it does not feel like a mac solution...

 

[kite]

Hm, that got complicated.
What I meant was 4 partitions on the internal and 4 partitions on the eSATA.

For stationary use I boot from the slim installs who have its content and swap on eSATA.
The FAT32 part is just for shared folders between XP and OS X

 

[kite]

No eSATA ExpressCard adaptor that I am aware of is capable of booting OSX or BootCamp. Unless there is a hack, BootCamp must be installed on a drive attached to the motherboard's SATA controller.

I think, unless someone has a link to a major skunkworks workaround the answer is: You can't.

What if I could make changes in the startup process for OS X so that the expresscard-slot got powered-up earlier?

 

[robbieduncan]

What if I could make changes in the startup process for OS X so that the expresscard-slot got powered-up earlier?

You need to get the card powered up and usable in EFI before OSX boots. To do this you need EFI drives for the card. These don't currently exist.

 

[kite]

You need to get the card powered up and usable in EFI before OSX boots. To do this you need EFI drives for the card. These don't currently exist.

Ok, thanks.

So I should blame this on Apple...
Isn't likely that they stop this because the poor performance in eSATA, like I suspect is the thing with USB-booting.
Maybe because the sad tolerance in the expresscard standard???
My card have a very loose fit in the slot... it does not invite you to move around your MBP, or to have the computer in the lap.
Hmm... wait!, that argument falls on the fact that firewire400 sucks just as bad in that aspect.

What ever, I give up on the booting thing anyway.

 

[robbieduncan]

No you should blame the card manufacturer. It's up to them to provide the drivers for their card, not Apple. My understanding is that you can provide EFI drivers that are loaded from the card itself. They haven't so it doesn't work. This is nothing to do with Apple.