Problem with two different Mac Minis

[fred.books]

I have 140 GB LaCie portable drive (has an orange rubber wrapper) right out of the box that I copied my Mac Mini OS 10.5.2 to. It boots to that mini over Firewire - if I supply auxiliary power from a USB hub with the included cable. Both the LaCie and the internal drive are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with APM partition scheme.

Problem is that the LaCie will not boot to another Mini running OS 10.3.9. I updated the firmware on this Mini, but it did not help. I can select the LaCie in the startup disk preferences, but when starting up I get only a blank white screen. In both cases, the aux power is coming from the same USB hub, while the Firewire is plugged directly into the Mini. This Mini is a little older than the first one.

Any ideas how to get the LaCie to boot to this Mini?

Thanks - Fred

[dnanian]

It might not be compatible with it, Fred; are both Minis Power PC based?

[fred.books]

The one I upgraded to 10.5.2 is the newer one ("early 2006" I think they call it), and it boots with the LaCie drive. The one that is 10.3.9 is a little older. The Disk Utility in the older one reports its drive format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), just like all the others; but it does not report a drive format (place where that info normally appears is just blank). Is that meaningful?

Earlier, when I was experimenting before I received the portable LaCie or upgraded to 10.5.2, I had the newer Mini at 10.4.11 and cloned it with Super Duper to a LaCie powered drive. That combination booted OK to the Mini at 10.3.9.

I am going to try the powered drive with 10.5.2 to rule in or out the power as a factor. I'll be kind of bummed if I can't get the portable to boot with the older Mini, as my plan is to use the portable LaCie to allow me to move between the two Minis, which are miles apart (one at work, one at home), and act as if I just had effectively one computer.

[dnanian]

OK. Well -- it's quite possible that one drive is having trouble (hardware) with one of the minis... let me know what you find out.

[fred.books]

But other than that, all this should work, I take it.

Fred

[dnanian]

Yes: same CPU, same OS version, later release of the OS vs. the Macs... should be fine.