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booting from usb external drive

Trying to fix my old PowerBook G4. I found my internal hard drive is dead.

I'm trying to reinstall the Mac OS-X but doesn't find any drives.

I attached an external USB drive (to try to install the software there) but doesn't find it. When I open disk repair, the external drive is there (the internal drive doesn't show)...

Any suggestions? Can I install the operating system in the external USB and boot from there?

Thanks!

David

Answer this question I have this problem too

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Can you give us the OS-X version you are trying to install.

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Sadly you'll need a FireWire HD which has the older OS's this system uses, either OS-9 or OS-X 10.5.8.

Your other option is to boot off of the grey OS installer disks that came with the system or a retail copy of either of the OS's I've listed here.

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If your internal drive is dead it likely needs replacing. Have you done that yet?

Sadly, you can't boot up the older PowerPC based systems (G series) under a USB drive, you need to use a FireWire connected drive and the drive needs to have a bootable OS on it for your system.

Depending on the OS version you are working with here you may need an older version or use a boot disk that was created on a G series system as the earlier versions of OS-X had two installs one for PowerPC based systems and the other for Intel based systems.

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Google told me, if any, it can only boot via a firewire harddrive, because it is a notebook before intel or sth like that. Just google it

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Just put your new disk into the g4 and make a normal install it from your macosx dvd...

Pd.- if you cant give us more specific details we cant give you more specific solutions

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david will be eternally grateful.
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