Can't Boot From OWC Ext FW 400 Drive

[Kelvin]

I reformatted this drive before using SuperDuper

Mount Point : /Volumes/Mercury Elite 200 Capacity : 186.3 GB (200,049,643,520 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Available : 158.7 GB (170,365,370,368 Bytes)
Permissions Enabled : Yes Used : 27.6 GB (29,684,273,152 Bytes)
Number of Folders : 60,450 Number of Files : 254,352

I am unable to boot from restart using the option key. The drive never shows up in the list despite clicking the refresh icon.

I'am able to select this drive in the Startup system preference but the boot up ends up going back to the internal drive.

My Mac is an iBook G4 1.2 10.3.9. I have no issues mounting this drive via the FW port.

The drive was purchased in Aug 2004. Could it be the drive is not bootable?

I'll email OWC also.

Thank you for any help.

Kelvin

[dnanian]

While that's possible, how is the drive partitioned, Kelvin? (Select it in disk utility and look near the bottom of the window.)

[Kelvin]

One thing I didn't mention was when I reformatted this drive, it was the 2nd drive on my external Firwire chain; iBook --> 500g HD --> 200g HD

I chose in Disk Utility the volume name not the hard drive and did an Erase with Mac OS Extend with Journalling. I then ran SuperDuper with erase before backup and a full back all files was completed. After doing this I couldn't see the ext HD in the startup line on restart/option key. I don't know if it was because it was the 2nd hard drive in the chain. I removed the drive and set it as a standalone HD on the FW chain. Still no go.

I decide to repeat the backup but this time there was just the one ext FW hard drive connected to iBook. I open Disk Utility and chose the HD icon and selected Partition. I changed the name of the harddrive to Backup and erased the contents.

I then repeated the SuperDuper back up. Copy all files, erase before copy and when it was completed I restarted/option and the external FW HD icon appeared and I was able to boot. I'm typing this booted off the external HD.

I don't understand what blessing the HD is and why it doesn't work with a multiple HD chain but I'm glad I'm able to back up and reboot from my backup.

Now I'm running to install 10.4

Thank you.

[dnanian]

It shouldn't matter, Kelvin, if you don't get an error, at least during the copy. For startup, it's possible that it won't show up quickly enough for Open Firmware, but you simplified to just the one drive, so that shouldn't have mattered either.

Very weird.