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serips

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 3, 2005
2
0
I have a 200 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive. Is it possible for me to install Tiger onto it? And if so what do I have to do?
 
You should be able to, though I've never tried it with USB 2.0. I've always used a FireWire external HD. As long as it shows up on the desktop right now when its plugged in and turned on, then it will work. Basically all you have to do is turn it on, put the Tiger Installer DVD in and boot from it, then when you select your destination, just select the USB External HD and it will install to the external HD. I've done this before many times. I have Tiger installed on my external HD in case the HD dies in my PowerBook. Then I can still use my PowerBook.

Again, not sure how well it will work with USB 2.0. I know that FireWire works great.
 
Sorry...

I don't believe that Macs can boot from USB drives. I certainly have never seen it work.

Anyone heard anything different?
 
It is kind of a shame, now that there are little USB keychain drives big enough to store a compact OS installation on.... If you could do this, I probably would've bought a 4GB USB drive to keep Panther on. :) And maybe goof around with Linux off of....
 
Well Apple pushes FireWire as its actually better for things like that anyways. Which is a strange comment considering that Apple no longer includes a FW cable for iPods, but I still think FireWire is the way to go with those kinds of things. You could always get a FireWire/USB 2.0 external case and install the HD you bought if it came down to that.
 
mklos said:
Well Apple pushes FireWire as its actually better for things like that anyways. Which is a strange comment considering that Apple no longer includes a FW cable for iPods, but I still think FireWire is the way to go with those kinds of things. You could always get a FireWire/USB 2.0 external case and install the HD you bought if it came down to that.

Firewire *is* better in the sense that it features higher sustained transfer rates. But there would be far more options for bootable external drives if it could be done off of USB.
 
Wow...well this is a bummer. I was actually thinking of carrying my little USB portable drive around incase I needed to boot into OS X if my hard drive failed. I guess I better get a portable FireWire enclosure for my notebook drive then. I think Apple definitly needs to fix this feature, you can do it on Windows but, not on the Mac...come on...:( *sigh* :rolleyes:
 
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