Will OSX boot from external (firewire/USB/network)

[Petros]

My iBook has a broken hard drive.

My dad is working out of town, and wants a simple laptop to use for personal writing. It's only a pet project of his, so he's not looking to spend much money.

If it can't boot from external, I'll just bite the bullet and replace it with some online guide.

 

[Dark Atheist]

as long as the drive is bootable (has the right files on it) i don't see why not

 

[X-Istence]

The iBook will boot from FireWire, but will not boot from USB.

You can even insert you OS X install CD, hook up an external firewire drive and install it to the FireWire drive and have OS X on it.

That being said, look for an Apple authorised reseller, take your laptop and a new hard drive to them, and they will be able to install the new hard drive, and the last time I had my dad do this he paid something like $35 or so, not including the new hard drive.

 

[Admiral Michael]

Oh man! you need to literally take the entire laptop apart to get the the hard drive. That's a stupid design. I love my Dell, I can easily get to most parts through covers on the bottom.

 

[Dark Atheist]

after sale - sales 😉

 

[X-Istence]

Oh man! you need to literally take the entire laptop apart to get the the hard drive. That's a stupid design. I love my Dell, I can easily get to most parts through covers on the bottom.

I've never had to replace a laptop hard drive. So why is then stupid design? The design was done to maximise the amount of components in the laptop into the smallest footprint available.

 

[SPeedY_B]

As X-Istence has already mentioned, iBook's (And all PPC based Macs for that matter) will happily boot from FireWire, however officially don't boot from USB.

They can be made to boot from USB with an almighty amount of arsing about though, there's a step-by-step available here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384&lsrc=osxh