USB Booting a PowerBook G4 12"

[kavanasc]

oh that really helps, I was working on different ways of making a bootable usb but failed, turn out that I was using the very first release of 10.4, no wonder.....

could you PM me the link of 10.4.6 which is working for you

just to add the things I've tried:
1. the leopard usb-boot works fine, after restore the image to the usb, I can see something like disk2s3, the 3 gives me a way out later when booted into the OF, and indicated the number "3" in the command line would boot from the usb nicely.
2. the 10.4 tiger image, after restored, has no partition number, only shows disk1, I guess that's the reason why it failed. Though it respond to the command dev usb1; dev disk@1 and so on, but when is input the command starts with boot /....... it's not working.

is downloading the 10.4.6 image to give it a shot.

 

[lepidotós]

I don't own a 12" PowerBook G4 -- I already have four 1024x768 laptops, I don't need a fifth. However, I've had good luck with a Micro Center 16GB flash drive with every Mac I've tried it on -- Lombard notwithstanding, but that was before I learned USB boot didn't come to PowerBooks until the Pismo. Specifically, the solid red one with two rounded corners. I've heard that USB install media doesn't work with more than one boot partition, but when that stick still had Tiger and 9.2.2 on it, both partitions were bootable.​

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Another fun fact: I discovered the original (867MHz) model PowerBook G4 12" can boot from USB via the Option-key multi-boot selector just like the Clamshell.

Maybe your machine, but mine has never been able to. I've tried multiple brands (mainly SanDisk Cruzer) and they're not recognized in the option menu or OpenFirmware. Mine is also an 867MHz machine.