Copied 10.4.11 to External Firewire HD; I get the flashing question mark folder
 

Hello there.

I have had experience using Superduper and I have a working clone of tiger on one of my imac g5s and it was done using a Maxtor FW HD, and the clone works flawlessly, thank you!

This time I am using a Western Digital firewire drive with the same IMAC and I am having a problem booting to this new clone. I don't think the problem is that it is western digital. I think the problem may be that I have Classic environment installed on the OSX that i am trying to clone.

The reason why I think this may be the problem is because when I rty to boot into this new clone, I am getting the "flashing question mark folder" whcih is from the OS9 OS. But , I am not trying to boot into OS. (My computer doesn't boot into os9 anyway, IT CANT. It is a G5, they can't boot into OS9 they can only use the OS9 environment)

So waht is going on here? The process when cloning to the new HD had no errors. BUt when I go to system preferences to change the start up disk and choose the clone which is suppposed to be 10.4.11 the computer restarts and then I get the "flashing question mark folder" as if it is trying to boot into OS9, but it supposed to boot into 10.4.11.

Any help please.
:eek:

Actually, I don't think so: WD's MyBook drives cannot be used to start up Power PC based Macs.

Ouch....I stand corrected. :D

If that is the case then I will return it and buy another Maxtor. Do you have any recommendations as far as maxtor or any other brand goes?

I recommend a number in our User's Guide. In general, I like (in no particular order -- all FireWire -- and I'm probably forgetting something):

• LaCie (especially the 2big in 'mirrored' mode)
• Apricorn
• Maxtor
• G-Tech
• Seagate
• OWC
• WiebeTech

Thanks for your reply dnanian.

I took a peak over at WD support page.
My Home edition of WD should be bootable. The reason why I say that is that my HD is not on their list of drives that are not bootable.

Here is the link to drives that they say are NOT bootable via firewire:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1

And here are the drives that they say ARE bootable via firewire.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1

What do you think?

I think it's not bootable. :)

(Seriously, if it's properly partitioned as "Apple Partition Map" and you've done a "Backup - all files" with Smart Update or Erase, then copy and it doesn't boot, then the drive is not bootable.)

Awesome thanks for the double assurance.
Great App!:)