Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Booting your iBook G4 from a USB stick

So I spent the better half of the night trying to figure out how to make my iBook G4 boot from a USB stick. I have the Leopard ISO, but none of my DVD drives will burn Dual Layer, so I needed to use the USB route.

However, none of the nonsense I found on the Internet could give me proper instructions. The system itself doesn't directly support it (holding down option during power-on doesn't show it either).

So I had to dig into my OpenFirmware roots and do it the old fashion way. So here's the quick tip for the rest of you out there (hopefully Google will eventually pull this up in page ranks so it gets hit first and saves people time).

  1. Plug in the USB device where you have copied your bootable system to (I do not cover this part since it's well covered already, google is your friend).
  2. Power on your iBook and hold down Command+Option+O+F. This will take you into the OpenFirmware. Scary looking if your not a computer type person.
  3. Once you see the screen go white with some text on it, you can release the keys in the previous step.
  4. Type "boot ud:,\\:tbxi" and if you're lucky, it will start booting from your USB device. If not, continue on.
  5. Type "dev usb0" at the little ">" prompt and hit return.
  6. Type "ls". If you see something like "/disk@1", continue, else go to the previous step and use "usb1" instead.
  7. If you get here and you haven't seen something like "/disk@1", then you're likely screwed, sorry.
  8. Type "dev disk@1" and hit return, and then "pwd" and hit return again. You should see something that looks like "/pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1". You will use this in the next step.
  9. Type "boot /pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi". This is the device part you got in the last step after typing "pwd" with ":,\\:tbxi" added to the end.
  10. Moment of truth, hit enter. You should now be booting into your USB drive. IT WILL BE SLOW SO BE PATIENT

This should also work on other PPC Mac's that don't normally boot from USB, such as G3s.
Posted by Ben Collins at 9:51 PM Labels:

18 comments:

  1. I found the simple way is to use the devaliases, so basically just try these three commands:

    boot ud:,\\:tbxi
    boot usb0/disk@1:,\\:tbxi
    boot usb1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi

    See if any of those works

    ReplyDelete

  2. hey ben, thanks for the instructions, they are the best guide. I arrive to step 9, but then it tells me "cant open device or file".
    any suggestion?

    ReplyDelete

  3. So i followed your instructions, and here's where i'm stuck on my ibook G4...

    Apple PowerBook6,7 4.9.3f0 BootROM build on 07/05/05 at 11:14:11
    ...
    ...

    ok
    0 > dev usb0 ok
    0 > ls ok
    0 > dev usb1 ok
    0 > ls
    ff9e3dd8: /disk@1 ok
    0 > dev disk@1 ok
    0 > pwd /pci@f2000000/usb@1b/disk@1 ok
    0 > boot /pci@f2000000/usb@1b/disk@1:,\\:tbxi can't OPEN: /pci@f2000000/usb@1b/disk@1:,\\:tbxi

    ReplyDelete

  4. I nave same M's problem on my ibook g4 1,2 ghz

    ReplyDelete

  5. I must say.. I love you! I got to step 4 and my iBook G4 started booting Leopard install from my USB thumb drive and it went way faster than the DVD I had been trying to use for the past week!!!

    Thank you thank you thank youuuuuu

    ReplyDelete

  6. Thank you very much. It works perfectly here with few minor changes :

    @niccolo :
    -> try with this command : "boot /pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi"

    ReplyDelete

  7. Hi Ben,

    All works well for me, except for the last part.
    I see the MAC OS X Apple, but after a while it turns into a circkel with an oblique stripe through it.
    Any idea how?

    Cheers, Jeroen

    ReplyDelete

  9. I'm also getting the "cant open device or file" message. Has anyone found a solution? Mine will be to go out and get a blank DVD-DL :)

    ReplyDelete

  10. error load size is too small

    ReplyDelete

  11. can't open as well......???

    ReplyDelete

  12. I get load is to small errors

    ReplyDelete

  13. Skip this guide.
    Didn't work for me.
    (Apple PowerBook6,5 4.8.5fo BootROM built on 04/06/04 @ 16:22:09)

    "0 > BOOT UD:," just boots to my internal HDD

    ReplyDelete

  14. didn't work for my ibook g4.Boot Rom 5.4.8.510 04/05/04

    ReplyDelete

  15. Brilliant! These instructions worked great but I managed to do something to the USB stick with Leopard on it so that the iBook insists that there is a sector size mismatch and will not boot. Plan b: target disk mode through a MacBook.

    ReplyDelete

  16. boot ud:,\\:tbxi
    boot usb0/disk@1:,\\:tbxi
    boot usb1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi

    every time i'll type this my mac ibook g4 say
    load-size is too small,,
    help me to solve this plsss tnx

    ReplyDelete

  17. Amazing ! It finally did the trick for me ! Leopard is installing on my iBook at the time I write this.

    This is the command which worked : "boot /pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1:3,\\:tbxi"

    I tried every others on this post (even the ones in comments) and it's the only working one on my ibook. I don't know if it's linked to the usb stick model or the dmg of Leopard I used but now I'm satisfied, it's installing right now ;)

    Thanks a lot Ben Collins and Noel for your advice.

    ReplyDelete

  18. Great! A new life for my old iBook! Thanks Ben!

    ReplyDelete

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