WD My Passport Studio Drive won't boot

[2stepbay]

Hi Dave

Found this post on a MacWorld review of the new WD drive:

"If you intend to make a SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner bootable backup, be aware that Western Digital does not support booting from external drives - any of them.

I bought the 320 GB Studio version and was dismayed to find that it would not boot in FW 400 or FW 800 mode, but would in USB mode. I would assume this is a chipset issue, since it does boot in USB. I have other external drives from other manufacturers and some I've assembled myself, and all boot perfectly in FW and USB.

I use a TimeCapsule for automatic and routine backups, but like to make weekly bootable clone backups in case I need to get back up and running quickly in case of total drive failure."

Yep, the drive only boots in USB mode. No problem in FW800 prior to the recent updates. So something changed in the recent firmware update, perhaps affecting the drive's chipset.

Rather sucks that I can BU my drive in SuperDuper in FW800, but can't boot from it. I'll contact WD and Apple tomorrow and see what they have to say (I'm not optimistic here about either party acknowledging the problem)